Requiem
by Reichenbach
Summary: (maraverse) It's the end of the world. For real this time, you guys.
1. Dum discussio venerit

Standard disclaimers apply.  
  
This is for all the people who're so patient. And for those who kicked my ass.  
  
Requiem  
  
1/5  
  
req·ui·em ( P ) (rkw-m, rkw- n.  
  
1. Requiem Roman Catholic Church.  
1. A mass for a deceased person.  
2. A musical composition for such a mass.  
2. A hymn, composition, or service for the dead.  
  
"You're going to love it down here," Mara told the green glowing baby in her arms. The power ring levitated just off the surface of the skin, that refused to be separated from him. The "Betcha Alfie saved the high chair Grandpa used to put me in when he was forced to watch me. But I won't need all the extra bungee cord for you. I hope." Her nose crinkled at the thought of teaching him how to escape from things. When he was old enough. Four at least.  
  
"We'll look at the dinosaur later. Let's see what Timmy's working on." At the computer, several processes were running, the monitors flashing a thousand images in the empty cave. A few bats screeched in protest of the newcomers, but remained in the caves above.  
  
There was a broken plasma display on the table, its parts spread across the table. The mangled hard disk was attached to the cave's computer via ribbon cable, and data recovery appeared to be complete.  
  
Readjusting the baby's miniscule weight in one arm, she sat down at the computer and began to go through the data available. No one had bothered to tell her that Jimmy was trying to blow up the entire world.  
  
Mara looked over her shoulder at the glass case in the center of the cave. "No one listened to me when I told you he was evil." Now Jordy was gone and if something wasn't done, so would everything else. And to think they were pissed at her when she'd blown up or acquired all of Luthor's holdings. The coolest and most ironic part was when she'd made the paper trail lead back to Ras al Ghul's organization. It seemed fitting at the time to do that, considering she was insane with rage and grief from both parties.  
  
A report did an auto-file into the caseload database. Calling it up, she saw that everyone had been called up, including Young Justice and all retired JSA members. Jimmy was still in a coma, but Apokolyps was destroyed, and no one knew where Granny Goodness, or Jimmy's device had gotten to, or why they hadn't struck against Earth yet. No wonder they were trying so hard to wake her brother up when she'd made her jail break.  
  
Maybe with the world ending, dad would just forget that she'd used him.  
  
"It's been about three or four years since we've had an Earth-ending crisis," she told the baby, trying to keep it all in stride. It was difficult. Her brother was involved. Jordy was gone because her brother was a fucker. "I used to ALWAYS be on those things. Either with the Titans, or on the Sidekick Plan with the JLA. Man. It's been a long time." Since she was in the good graces of the JLA, among other things.  
  
When she looked down, she noticed the baby's tiny thumb in his mouth. His smooth little eyelids were closed and the green glow of the ring hugged him like a second skin. The strange look of it gave her pause, but in the end she smiled. "Enjoy your sleep, J.B., I'll show you the rest of the place later. I guess it's time to get to work."  
  
Mara tried to open the fully restored files from the broken plasma display, and got an access denied message.  
  
"Ok..." she checked the permissions on the machine. She and Tim had the same permissions, and he'd left himself logged in, which was uncharacteristic, but understandable under the circumstances. Seeing that the file shouldn't have been locked, she checked to see if her mother was running interference.  
  
"You really shouldn't pry into things that are not your business," Matrix's passionless tenor emitted from the speakers.  
  
He had been a part of the Titans almost as long as she had been. In fact, she'd been part of the team that had found him being forced into the service of an alien military cruiser, his advanced logic hardware performing intense hyperspace calculations against his will. Not even Matrix himself was sure when he had attained sentience, but the Titans had freed him, and found him a more amiable "case" to live in. He had been happy, being mobile and free. She was certain this was destroying his morale.  
  
Mara's eyes narrowed. "I thought you were on mom's lap top?" His body had been destroyed and his hardware damaged almost irreparably by the same nanites that had killed Jordy. She'd hoped that out of respect for that, she and Matrix could come to some sort of working agreement. But it appeared that he was siding with her family, probably her mom specifically.  
  
"I was cramped. I'm spread over the network. I needed space to repair my databases." He must have been doing better, the flippancy appeared to be returning.  
  
"Do they have an ETA on getting you better digs?" The ability to travel through cyberspace probably wasn't much consolation when one was confined to data streams instead of being able to walk in the real world.  
  
His voice was very stiff. "I do not appear to be a priority at this present time."  
  
"I'll see what I can do for you. There's got to be something you can use temporarily." It was typical—they'd gotten him back online because they needed info, not because they cared.  
  
"There are more pressing matters than... all of this." Interesting. Not only was he attempting to let her down easily, he was also attempting to send her on her little way.  
  
"This is the display Jimmy put a shovel through, isn't it? Did Oracle tell you to keep me away?" That right there told her it was something important. Maybe her mother thought she was in on it. It was the story of her life, lately.  
  
"She does not know the process is complete."  
  
Mara reminded herself not to yell. It wouldn't do any good to wake the baby. "Then let me see it."  
  
"I merely wish to save you additional emotional distress."  
  
With her free hand, Mara pinched the bridge of her nose. "I don't blame you."  
  
There was silence for a moment—much longer than a synthetic life form should need to gather his thoughts. "I did not recharge at the appropriate meal time."  
  
"I have a feeling... if it hadn't happened then, it would have been the next time he was on duty. It was not a random attack." She didn't know the specifics, but slowly the picture was beginning to fill itself in. She just didn't understand Jimmy's WHY. "Please let me see it."  
  
The directory opened and she saw a list of files, labeled by number. Zero zero seven looked like it was her number. That must have killed Jimmy.  
  
In that brief instant between when she gave the command for the file to run and the actual start of the video, she regretted her decision. She couldn't go back now.  
  
The video was distorted with fuzz and lines, but it was her grandfather, several years younger than she remembered him being. "Martha Ann, I know you think that whatever it is, it's important. But you know better. So don't." Her grandfather looked away from the screen, and she was not sure if he thought he was finished, or if he was uncomfortable. A moment later, he turned back.  
  
"I suppose you deserve an explanation," he continued finally. "I'm not the man I was the night you scared the hell out of Jim in his office for the first time." He appeared to be fond of the memory, his terse features eased for a moment, but returned to their more familiar state. "I'm not even the man I was when you started college. Edge is everything in this business and I'm too stubborn to retire." He paused, letting her draw her own conclusions. "If, in the course of the coming years, I take a few not entirely necessary risks, and if said risks should result in my 'untimely' demise..." He stopped again, extremely uncomfortable. "I'm too stubborn to retire.  
  
"I accept that you may be angry with me. However, I believe you may be the only one to understand. Your father still has his ideals. Some of them pertaining to the remaining years of my life. I do not wish to disappoint him. A final thing...I make his life miserable, but Jordan is...acceptable. I want him to know what he's getting himself into. I'm glad you... have a life outside of the cave. I've tried to tell you this, but I know you don't listen—or won't believe me. You're going to want to leave the cave some day. In fact, I'd be disappointed if you didn't. You've been a good partner." His sharp blue eyes darted back and forth again. "That's all." The video turned off.  
  
She'd already started to question whether she could continue being Robin. Cass had already offered her a trade up to the currently not used Batgirl moniker, but it had felt wrong. Now she knew why. What he was suggesting...  
  
Sometimes it bothered her that he was always right. Other times, like now, it was a comfort.  
  
"You might not be spending as much time down here as I thought," Mara said simply. The baby was sucking on all four of the fingers on his right hand, still sleeping without a care. "Show you around before we go?"  
  
Jimmy woke with a start in a shiny white hospital room. The first thing he noticed is that he wasn't wearing any clothes beneath those sheets.  
  
Dammit. There was a reason Mara always wore shorts and a t-shirt under her uniform.  
  
"So, like should I punch him?" Good ol' Uncle Roy.  
  
"I'm not sure Dick meant it," Uncle Wally snipped. "We need him conscious."  
  
"I'm not dead and stuff?" he asked them.  
  
Roy grabbed his hair. "Not yet. Of course if the earth blows up, then it'll save your dad the burden."  
  
"It's my fault. I know. But we don't have time...." Jimmy pulled Roy's hand off of his head and sat up, wincing against the pain. "Migraine."  
  
"Try boot to the head." Wally was scowling at him.  
  
"No, really, Bruce was there, and he said I have to tell--" He swung his legs over the side of the hospital bed and wrapped the sheet around him. "Never mind."  
  
"Did the Old Man tell you you're an idiot?" Roy asked in all seriousness.  
  
"Yeah. He did. And I think Alfie went to Hell for calling out a hit on Luthor. I don't know." Jimmy looked around for his clothes. He didn't see the Icarus suit anywhere, so he headed to the door without it.  
  
Wally yanked his hand off the door an instant later. "And where do you think YOU are going?"  
  
Even though he couldn't see straight, Jimmy kept his head up and tried to sound resolute. "I'm getting my clothes, and I'm getting gone!"  
  
Roy put his arm between Jimmy and the door, holding it closed. Even Uncle Roy was pissed with him. He was sure everyone in the universe was.  
  
He tried to shake them off. "I just gotta figure out how she found a power source. Do you know how much freaking energy that thing would take, to disrupt the magnetic poles?"  
  
Wally and Roy looked at each other and then stepped a little closer to Jimmy, who just kept thinking out loud.  
  
"It's a lot of freaking energy. Like more than Superman running on a treadmill energy. Like... you'd have to...with a ring..." his eyes went blank, and Roy grabbed his arm, thinking he was about to pass out.  
  
"Look, buddy, you're not going anywhere." Roy's nose was about an inch away from him. "I don't care what kind of spiritually enlightening experience you've just had. You killed Jordy Rayner and you're working with Darkseid. That makes you under arrest in my book."  
  
"Aren't you people listening to me? Jordy isn't dead, but at this rate he's gonna be! Oh crap." He grabbed hold of Roy's shoulder, seeing double, then quadruple Roys.  
  
"I'm just not sure if he's full of shit or brain damaged," Wally said casually, masking his anger.  
  
In disgust, Jimmy pushed on Roy's shoulder, trying to shove him out of the way. "Listen to me! Someone get mom. Dad needs to tell the Justice League -- And don't tell Mara..." he leaned against the wall, still not mobile. "And I need some freaking aspirin."  
  
"I ate a stick of butter, once," Mara randomly told her child. They stood in front of a glass case containing a familiar black and white suit. "I was like five. I know you're going to be so much smarter than I was. Alfred was making cookies, and I was sitting at the kitchen table... and I was wondering... Well, I got scolded by Alfred. But he stayed up with me all night when I was sick from it. He would have taught you manners. So that you're not a 'godless heathen who doesn't know a dinner fork from a salad fork.' He loved us all to death. Literally."  
  
She moved on to the next case in the cave.  
  
"You would have liked him," Mara told the baby. He was still asleep, cocooned in light. She knew he didn't understand or care, but she kept talking. "He was a tough teacher. Talk about beating it into your head. He wasn't into that mushy stuff." She almost laughed and cried at the same time. "He did try to give me The Talk, once, though. And then he gave up and just grounded me. We had the best times." She touched the glass case holding The Suit. "Just mention pink, purple, and his car in the same sentence, and he'd be growling for an hour." She looked over at the spot where the Car should have been. It was day time, and Tim was probably off trying to save the world. From her brother.  
  
"He'd have liked you too. I... Sometimes, I kind of wish I'd have been too late. I know He would never have wanted it, and it's an abomination... to raise the dead... but..." Mara sighed and moved on to the hollowed out trophy room. "Especially now... I wish that I could just let myself not care."  
  
He let out a tiny hiccup. Were they supposed to do that?  
  
"This is the dinosaur. He's lived in the cave since your grandpa was an itty bitty Robin." She smiled at the metal structure covered with molded Latex and rubber, dusty and cracked with age. She never realized that Alfred had dusted that thing, it was just always clean, like everything else above and below. "I'll miss him. He's good for telling secrets to."  
  
After going to her locker and removing a portion of the contents, she looked around a last time. She thought about leaving a note, but Tim would understand. She tossed her uniform onto his chair and left before she could get emotional.  
  
He woke on the shining cold floor of the white room. It took all his strength to roll onto his back. How long had he been there? It felt like forever, and still—not long enough. The life was gone out of him.  
  
He knew he'd been on the verge of sleeping forever, after he'd completed his great task. She'd given him enough sustenance to keep him alive, but that was all. Nothing to keep him going forward.  
  
"You need to be fed, little child." Granny's voice echoed in the white room, or in his mind, he couldn't tell. "I had hoped to have a feast for you, but it wasn't to be." He knew why. It was because of the woman who had taken his child. They had not been able to free him yet.  
  
A glowing ball of energy slowly descended in front of him. It spun on axis, tendrils of yellow-white wisping off the gold and orange surface. His fingers reached out to it, and the swirling edges moved to meet him.  
  
The searing plasma did not burn him, but was absorbed whole the moment he made contact. Gasping with the rush, his head cleared, and the feeling of immobility faded.  
  
"It's not much, little one, but it will be enough to complete your task."  
  
"The great one?" he asked, sitting up.  
  
She put a large heavy hand on his head in comfort. "No. You are not strong enough for that. You need to be replenished, and it will require your own hand."  
  
He rubbed his eyes, feeling well enough to accomplish the small labor his grandmother had set before him. "What must I do?"  
  
"You will be taking back what is yours."  
  
Taking a picture off the desk in the library, Mara shoved it into her bag before grabbing the baby carrier. Behind her, the clock door opened.  
  
"Now's not a good time to quit," Tim informed her.  
  
Mara refused to turn around and look at him. It would just be too hard. "Now's a good time. I thought you would understand that."  
  
"Not when we're trying to stop the end of the world," he mocked.  
  
"I just had a cesarean. Do I LOOK like I'm ready for this? I'm not even supposed to be carrying him, much less fighting."  
  
"Your brain still works." Tim tossed a CD that landed on the empty desk. "The Justice League has narrowed it down to one device. We need some way to disable it. It appears impenetrable."  
  
Mara put the CD into her bag. "I'm going back to the city. I've already had my stuff moved there. I'll look at it when I get there."  
  
"None of us are ever out of the game. You should know that."  
  
Closing her eyes, Mara sighed and put the carrier down on the desk. She hadn't left a note because she didn't want to have to explain herself. "I'm not out. But... I have to go. I can't stay here. I can't go down there. I can't BE Robin."  
  
"The end of the world aside—I need you down there." Tim was trying to be patient, and they were running out of time.  
  
"You don't need me down there. I keep stealing your chair." She smiled briefly. "Sammy's dying for a shot. And with Cassie teaching her and Peaches, she's at a good spot. She's malleable."  
  
Tim's teeth ground at the mention of Sammy in spandex. "What about you? Are you freelancing, now?"  
  
Mara smiled at the thought of being a separate entity from her family. "I guess that would make me freelance."  
  
"What are we supposed to call you?" Tim was having trouble wrapping his mind around it. Especially in light of what the last family freelancer had done.  
  
There was something mischievous in Mara's eyes. "Nobody."  
  
"That's a lousy--"  
  
Picking up the carrier, Mara went for the door. "Give me a few hours."  
  
The down town apartment hadn't been used since she and Jordy had gotten married. It had been cleaned recently, but had a foreign smell, like a hotel room.  
  
She put the carrier down just inside the doorway, and then closed the door, trying to not breathe in that foreign smell. They'd only stopped living there within the last year. One'd think it'd be more of an inviting environment than this.  
  
"THE BABY!" a tiny voice cried out. Sammy came running from the living room into the foyer, socks sliding on the slate until she fell over and landed on her stomach just in front of the carrier. "Are babies supposed to glow in the dark?"  
  
Mara looked up from the girl to the living room doorway. Cassandra was leaning against the frame, her arms folded across her chest. "Want to baby- sit hyperactive seven-year-old?"  
  
"Actually, I want an insanely long nap." The sooner she looked at Tim's files, the sooner she could achieve that very thing. The last few days was catching up with her.  
  
"Good. Sammy can baby-sit you." Cassandra flicked a finger toward the baby carrier, and Sammy picked it up, taking it into the living room.  
  
Mara sighed. "Why're you out to torture me?"  
  
Cassandra seemed very satisfied with herself. "I'm helping."  
  
"Through hurting."  
  
"You shouldn't be alone. Iseley's with Dana, and I'm on 'end of the world' duty." She paused, evidently hoping Mara would catch up, but it didn't happen. "Seven-year-old help is better than no help," she said finally. Grabbing her purse, she walked right past Mara and left.  
  
Kind of dazed, Mara walked into the living room, wondering what the hell had just transpired. Didn't anyone know she didn't have time for this?  
  
"We're going to be the best pals ever, you and me. You're gunna be WAY better than Iseley. She just cries and poops a lot, but you're way better than her..."  
  
Mara's heart caught in her throat at the sight of Sammy's hand penetrating the green field, rubbing J. B's belly. "How did you--"  
  
"He likes me," she explained simply. "We're gunna be pals forever."  
  
In defeat, Mara put her laptop on glass coffee table, opened it, and began going through files.  
  
When Jimmy woke up, he was alone in the room. It took him a full thirty four seconds to dislocate his thumbs and tear his hands out of the handcuffs. Dammit, he was slow. "Stupid head and stupid passing out..." he muttered, sitting up and tying the sheet around his waist.  
  
He began opening drawers at the small counter across from the bed, but they were all empty. They knew him.  
  
He was looking for something to pick the lock with. Jimmy knew it was locked without trying it.  
  
Looking around, he assessed his surroundings. This lesson could be blamed entirely on the old man, not his dad.  
  
Bruce had practically kidnapped him for an entire weekend when he was seven, and forced him to escape and pick his way out of hundreds of scenarios. At the time he was pissed his mother had let him be abducted for two whole days. Now he realized the old man just knew that mom wouldn't approve of him learning the trade, and it was something dad and Timmy might not get to in their private lessons.  
  
As he pulled the top drawer entirely out of the counter, he remembered his favorite part of the lesson that weekend: when in doubt, start breaking things. Jimmy slammed the drawer against the counter, dislodging the molded plastic handle. Snapping it in half, he headed for the door and jammed the plastic in the lock. It was harder than actually having a pick, or even a piece of metal, but it wasn't impossible. However, you'd know he'd been there. Of course, they were going to know he wasn't there, so it wasn't like it mattered.  
  
The lock clicked, and he pulled the door handle slowly. Peeking through the crack, he didn't see anyone and decided to proceed through.  
  
"I'd get back in there." Roy was leaning against the wall next to the door hinge.  
  
"Do you want to disable that thing, or do you want the Earth to get zapped?" Jimmy wondered if he was too dizzy to take Roy. Possibly. It may also be his only option. He couldn't believe he hadn't seen it before. He couldn't believe he'd let Granny Goodness get Jordy.  
  
"You are staying here until your father, or the Justice League can deal with you."  
  
"If you don't let me out of here, Jordy's going to die! For real this time." He tried to march purposefully past Roy, and thought that he'd made his point, until he felt the side of a hand on the back of his head. All six and a half feet of him dropped to the floor.  
  
"I'm not buying any of your shit, ever again." Roy looked down at him with the glare of a man who had been betrayed. He didn't even have Roy's trust any more.  
  
Jimmy tried to get onto his knees, but he couldn't seem to find the room as it spun again. "Bruce said I was supposed to tell you, and we were supposed to fix it, together. Bruce said we could fix it. Jordy--"  
  
"You killed him. He's dead. Goddamnit, when the hell are you going to grow up and stop playing games? Someone's dead and you're still fucking around with all of us."  
  
Before he could find his legs, Jimmy began puking stomach juices. "I'm not—fucking—with you," he got out between heaves.  
  
"Tell that to Kyle—tell that to your sister." Unable to listen any more, Roy kicked him in the head and sent him back into unconsciousness.  
  
"Yeah," Mara sighed into the telephone, "I had a feeling you guys would have found that already. Just obligated to report in and stuff." The only potential vulnerability she had managed to find had already been discovered by both Tim and Clark. "I'm gratuitous," she muttered, then realized she'd said it out loud.  
  
"Any ideas what's powering it?" Tim was trying to sound casual, but it wasn't working. He at least knew better than to try to console her.  
  
"Probably no more than you do. Someone has to wring it out of my brother, and last I heard, Roy put him out again." She sighed in frustration. "I should have stayed up there..."  
  
In the kitchen, Sammy was going through the cupboards. This place sucked. When she was like five and stuff, she got to come over on Saturday mornings and watch cartoons with Mara and Jordy, and play with their toys and stuff, but then she moved into Old Batman's house, and gave all her toys away. At least when she was five there was food in the cupboards. So far she'd found baking soda, two packages of Ramen noodles (too bad she wasn't allowed to use the stove) peanut butter, and an unopened jar of mayonnaise. Jordy hid bags of M&M's everywhere, and she couldn't even find old yucky bags of those.  
  
"This is so stinky," she told her new pal. He was in his baby carrier, sleeping and sucking his fingers. Babies were dumb like that. "Your mommy is really bad at having food in the house. Cassie always makes sure there's peanut butter and marshmallows."  
  
Sitting down on the counter, she pondered the mayonnaise. It was the same color as marshmallow fluff. Maybe she could close her eyes real hard and pretend.  
  
By the same token, the bricks of Ramen noodles were kind of like bread. They were shaped like bread and they kind of tasted bready when they weren't made into soup.  
  
This could totally work.  
  
Hopping off the counter, she began looking for a knife. "Y'know, J.B., I make really good marshmellon and peanut butter sammiches. Too bad you're a midget-baby. If you weren't a midget, then we could share."  
  
Peaches was dumb because she was six, but she missed Peaches because they used to eat sandwiches together. It had been like a whole week or something since they had ninja lessons with Cassie.  
  
Putting her sandwich together, she wondered why babies weren't more like dolls. They were supposed to be better than dolls because they were supposed to be "interactive" like dad said, but you had to play with them careful and stuff. And that was dumb.  
  
"Maybe you'll grow up to be not dumb," Sammy pondered, biting into her bricks of noodles. She chewed for a few seconds, then spit it out. Mayonnaise was not a good marshmallow alternative.  
  
"What the—never mind. Don't even tell me."  
  
Sammy looked up guiltily at Mara, who was staring at the pieces of noodle, peanut butter and mayo on the floor. "I was hungry."  
  
"Next time, ask." She wet a wash cloth and threw it to Sammy. "I guess it's time to order something or... something." She couldn't say anything. She had, after all, eaten a stick of butter once.  
  
Picking up the phone, she tried to match up the phone numbers stored in her brain with the names of restaurants that did takeout. "How's about Chinese?" That was one number she didn't have to work too hard to remember.  
  
Sammy got all the yucky stuff into the rag and was walking over to the sink with it. "I want sweet and sou--" She stopped breathing and her eyes grew wide, looking past Mara into the doorway. "Jordy?"  
  
Mara spun around, and suddenly he was there, two inches from her face. Their eyes locked, she didn't even breathe. Shock made her hesitate, and perhaps not even see the blow that connected with the side of her head a second later.  
  
Seeing that things were not right at all, Sammy used her body as a shield between the badness going on and the baby.  
  
"Give him to me," Jordy demanded.  
  
"I... I don't think I should." Sammy was pretty sure he was evil. Peaches talked about superhero stuff, and people who knocked out other people were evil, even if the punching person was someone you loved. When that happened, they were clones.  
  
"He is mine." EvilJordy® came closer, and Sammy tried to hug the baby to her even more. "She took him from me. I will have him back."  
  
Sammy wished there was something she could do. EvilJordy was obviously crazy, and if he hurt Mara, she was pretty sure he wouldn't mind hurting Jordy She wondered if the glowing aura around the baby was like an egg shell, that it could protect them—or at least him.  
  
The green light surrounded her too, just as Jordy reached for them. His hand stopped on the surface of green, and couldn't get through. "Let me have him!"  
  
"Go away! You're bad, and you need to go away!" a large hand peeled off of the field surrounding them, and hit him back, out of the kitchen.  
  
EvilJordy flew back at them, and before he could get in, the green light filled up the entire room like Jello. Righteous, good, and anti-evil Jello. Jordy growled, punching at the light, unable to reenter the room. Finally, he placed both hands on the edge of the field of green and sighed, energy flowing into him.  
  
Sammy didn't know much about superhero stuff, since she was going to be a ninja, but she had a feeling this wasn't good. As soon as she figured out that he was sucking the Green Lantern energy out of the green light, the green light disappeared. She had to use punches.  
  
Her hands balled into fists of anger as much as fear. She noticed that the silver ring that had been hovering over the baby in the green light on her finger, its center glowing green. She didn't understand how it had gotten there, but the ring meant she could give him all kinds of punches.  
  
"I'm really sorry, Jordy, but you're really bad right now." Flying at him as fast as Peaches, who was as fast as Superman, and faster than Wonder Woman, she slammed into his chest. All the air came out and he crashed into the dining room table.  
  
The glass table shattered, and before she could stop herself, a hand reached out of the ring to pull him away from the falling glass.  
  
It was the wrong thing to do. He used the tether to drain energy from the ring. As much as she tried to stop it, and make the ring go to sleep, it wouldn't listen to her.  
  
EvilJordy began laughing. It wasn't a good happy Jordy laugh, it was an evil laugh. "The ring was MINE! Before she stole it. It listens to me!"  
  
Sammy squirmed, trying to catch her breath. "Not when you tell it to do something EVIL!" At that, the ring shut off. The only glow it maintained was the field around the baby.  
  
With heaving breaths, Jordy began marching past her, going for the baby.  
  
Sammy bit her lip, knowing what she was about to do was really, really bad. With all the force her mind could muster, her feet pushed off the ground as if she were propelled by a rocket. She knocked him square in the chest, and felt all of the air leave EvilJordy's lungs they both crashed through wall of window in the dining room. It all happened so quickly that he didn't have time to latch on to her to try to convince the ring to do his will.  
  
As soon as they were well past the falling glass, she stopped. EvilJordy started falling downward, and she just levitated there, watching. She must have hit him hard enough. He wasn't stopping his fall. As he reached the last story of the building, she closed her eyes and turned away. There was a horrible sound of twisting of metal as his body crushed through a black sports car and a thud as he hit asphalt.  
  
Not knowing what to do, she flew inside and back into the kitchen. JB was crying, but still surrounded in his green bubble. The side of Mara's head was a little bit bloody but really, really purple and she was totally not going to wake up any time soon.  
  
She thought about calling Cassie, but there was only one person she wanted right now. Taking the communicator out of Mara's pocket, she activated it.  
  
"Um... Oracle?" You were supposed to use secret code names or something when you did this stuff.  
  
"Sammy, honey, are you playing with Mara's communicator?"  
  
She kind of started to shake a little bit. Before she could stop herself, her nose was running and tears were rolling off her cheeks and onto the floor. "Mara won't wake up, and Jordy was here, and I pushed him out the window..."  
  
"Slow down."  
  
A cold early-December breeze came tearing through the apartment. Sammy looked around at the destruction. "I want my daddy!"  
  
Tim showed up instead of Batman, because it didn't take a detective to figure out that the place was going to be crawling with "authorities" after something as large as that had transpired. He did what he least wanted to do, and waited until an official call came in from the authorities because Tim Drake just didn't have that kind of access to police channels, or more precisely to superhero channels.  
  
What a wonderful idea Cassandra had had. Let Sammy keep Mara out of trouble while the rest of them worked. It had ended up so well. Sammy had been left in the line of fire—again.  
  
He got off of the private elevator and wove through the foyer to the only apartment on the floor. He had to duck past a raving man in a black Armani who was threatening a law suit over his demolished car.  
  
When Tim finally got through the door, Mara was holding an ice pack to the side of her head and doing her best to not growl at the EMT who kept insisting she needed to be looked over by a professional for a zillion good reasons.  
  
Superman had shown up three minutes after building security's initial call to the police under the guise of investigating League-related meta activity. When a Green Lantern ring came into use, they'd wanted to know the circumstances. Superman was trying to act as an intermediary between Sammy who would not let go of the baby carrier, and the police.  
  
"How did you think to push him out of window?" he kept his arms folded across his chest, and remained planted firmly between the girl and the two detectives attempting to gather information.  
  
"I said what would Alfie do? Cuz he's smart and not crazy, and Alfie used to sweep off the step outside the kitchen at Mara's house that's less stupid than this one." She sniffed and rubbed her nose.  
  
When she did so, Tim saw the silver ringer on her middle finger. "Sammy, how did that get there?" This was bad beyond his wildest imaginings of bad.  
  
"I was trying to keep EvilJordy away from the baby, and it got all green around us, and then the ring was there." She held up the ring for him to inspect.  
  
Picking her up, Tim discretely wrapped his hand around the ring and tugged.  
  
Superman arched an eyebrow.  
  
Tim's jaw locked, making sure Superman was still acting as a door. He twisted and pulled twice, but the ring didn't give.  
  
"It appears, for the moment, to be stuck," Superman explained formally. "The Justice League will, however, do it's best to resolve the situation."  
  
"Sammy," Tim said in a low voice. "I want you to WANT to take this ring off, right now."  
  
"Daddy... that HURTS. J. B. gave it to me. He's my pal and I wanna help..." She yanked her hand away from her father.  
  
Superman turned back to the detectives, still using himself as a barrier. "If you can excuse us... I would like to explain the situation to the gentleman privately, if I could?"  
  
The older of the two turned toward the remains of the dining room wall. Fortunately, his partner followed suit.  
  
"I think she'll be fine for now," Superman cautioned.  
  
"You can't be serious." But Tim knew he was.  
  
Superman didn't change his tone. "I don't see that we have a whole lot of choice. There isn't time. If what she's saying is true, Jordy might not have gotten what he came for, but he got what he needed."  
  
Tim had a headache. "And what is that?"  
  
Mara staggered over, still holding the ice pack to her head. "A recharge."  
  
To Be Continued in Part 2  
  
Libera me, Domine,   
de morte aeterna In die illa tremenda:   
Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra:   
Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem  
  
Tremens factus sum ego et timeo   
Dum discussio venerit   
  
Atque ventura ira  
  


Deliver me, O Lord, from death eternal,   
on that dreadful day:   
when the heavens and the earth shall quake,   
when Thou shalt come to judge the world by fire.  
  
I am seized by trembling, and I fear   
Until the judgment should come,  
  
And I also dread the coming wrath. 


	2. unde mundus iudicetur

Standard disclaimers

Requiem

Part 2

_Liber scriptus proferetur  
in quo totum continetur,  
unde mundus iudicetur. _

A written book will be brought forth  
in which everything is contained  
from which the world shall be judged.

Before he even got back to the hospital room, Nightwing could hear Jimmy raving. "Let me spell it out for the SLOW people... JORDY is still ALIVE. Granny Goodness used the nanos as a cover, so we wouldn't come looking for him. She's using HIM to power that thing! You need a limitless Green Lantern-only-inhibited by-will-sort of power source to get that thing running."  
  
Nightwing decided to hang just outside the door. One tended to learn interesting things that way.  
  
"Then tell me why we found his RING in what was left of the Tower?" Roy was going to belt him upside the head again, probably. He'd step in before it came to that.  
  
"Sometimes it hurts being the only one with a fucking clue." Yeah. Jimmy was about to be unconscious again. Dick had been talking with Oracle, trying to coordinate with the Justice League some sort of plan of attack. No one could find the device, and no one could figure out how to disable it once they had it. "Superman told me this one time, that when Jordy was born, he had his mom's powers. And he got abducted when he was like three, and ALL of you guys had to get him back. And you never knew who REALLY took him, or why, and when you got him back, he didn't have his powers. HELLO? She's tapped into them—turned him ON again."  
  
Nightwing stepped into the room and grabbed Roy's shoulder, instinctively knowing the boy was in real danger of taking another nap, courtesy of the archer. Wally was staring out the window; it was probably the only way he could keep himself in check. "HOW did she turn him on again?" He had a good feeling that Jimmy knew.  
  
Jimmy blushed.  
  
Folding arms over his chest, Nightwing glared down at his son lying flat on the bed. He wasn't letting Jimmy out of this. If he had to treat him like the criminals he usually dealt with, he would.  
  
"I... It was another project I was working on. Like a birthday gift. They were just designs. Scribbles on paper, really." Jimmy struggled like a beached whale to roll onto his side and sit up. The sides of his head were bruised black and his eyes were glazed over and watery, pupils dilated, gaze wandering past Nightwing nervously. "I didn't freaking mean it, dad. I didn't mean any of it. But let me help."  
  
Nightwing looked to both Roy and Wally.  
  
Roy didn't move. "Are you sure, man?"  
  
"Yeah. Check in with Oracle, she can catch you up on the game plan. I got it." Nightwing opened the door for them. "Thanks, guys. For real."  
  
Wally grabbed his best friend's shoulder and squeezed, then walked out.  
  
"Let's see," Nightwing started. "You've pissed Wally off into silence, you're getting the crap slapped out of you by your God-dad, and you're responsible for the current state of the world. Have I left anything out?"  
  
Jimmy set up and dumped his head into his hands. "My wife wants a divorce, and my sister wishes I was dead. I think that's everything." He rubbed his eyes and yawned, trying to suck in as much air as possible. "Dad, I want to help. I didn't mean for it go this far. But we gotta get out of here and get to work."  
  
"I told you. BRUCE told you. Goddamnit." This wasn't starting out well. He'd fully intended to "interrogate the prisoner," but he was frustrated. This was HIS partner, HIS sidekick. HE had formed the boy from the ground up.  
  
Nightwing felt betrayed. "Did you think we were telling you that for our HEALTH?"  
  
"I just thought you guys were spastic over nothing." Jimmy said it so simply, like he couldn't fathom why putting such things to paper could possibly be a BAD idea.  
  
That pissed Dick off. "Are you an idiot?"  
  
"Dad--"  
  
"Answer the question, Jomider. Are you a fucking idiot?" Nightwing stripped off his glove and wiped a hand over his face. "Did it ever fucking occur to you that maybe... JUST MAYBE we had a reason we did not want you to commit those things to paper?"  
  
"Because the Old Man was a kill joy, and because he said jump, and you always asked How High?" Jimmy had the nerve to actually look him in the eye when he said that. "Dad, you're wasting time. You have to let me out of here, or Jordy's going to die. That machine can't handle more than one use. AFTER it takes out half the planet, disrupts electronics on the other half and destroys weather patterns, it's going to explode. Even Nth metal has its limits."  
  
Jimmy started to get up, but Nightwing slammed him back in the bed. "It's because if that stuff is on paper, it exists in a form that the wrong people can get their hands on. It even being in your BRAIN was bad enough. Holy crap! I can't believe you were my SIDEKICK. I can't believe we used to WORK together. On the RIGHT side. And all the time you were planning on ways to destroy the world. EXPLAIN that to me!"  
  
The young man grabbed his father's hand and thrust it away. "I'm not some fucking super villain." He tried to stand up, but Nightwing didn't move from the side of the bed, and he didn't have any room to maneuver. "I meant it when I was out there. I gave you one hundred percent, even when I had no business being out there. I meant it when I was helping people. This was... this was kid stuff. It was a game. I didn't take it seriously, and I never understood why you guys did either. I always thought you should have KNOWN I wouldn't actually build any of that stuff."  
  
Nightwing didn't understand where the communication break down was. Didn't his son know how wrong it was, and on how many LEVELS it was wrong? "Jimmy, all that stuff WORKED. That's why we didn't want you to write any of it down. Not even the stuff that technology hadn't caught up to yet, because it WOULD. It wasn't a game, it wasn't kid stuff, it wasn't—we took it seriously. We took YOU seriously."  
  
The young man's eyes lost their glazed over look for the first time since the conversation had begun. "I—." He had to stop. He wasn't sure there were words for that. "Thanks."  
  
Thanks?  
  
Dick had a very bad feeling that he'd misjudged his son for too many years. "You weren't some stupid average kid with the regular destructive tendencies. Spray painting a bridge I could deal with. But Jimmy... this stuff was WAY more serious than you realized." Nightwing peeled off a glove then his mask a moment later. All that so he could rub his eyes and pinch the bridge of his nose, as if that would stave off the headache that was threatening to break his brain in two. "Dammit, Jimmy. Why did you think you were average? We knew you weren't. We knew your sister wasn't. We tried to treat you like you were. We made you do chores, we gave you curfews. We tried to make sure you had social lives. But Goddamit. You were in the suit two weeks and you zapped your sister into the Phantom Zone. That's not NORMAL."  
  
Jimmy's gaze was firmly planted on the floor. It was a hell of a time for another confession, but since dad had brought it up... "It... wasn't the Phantom Zone."  
  
"What? No. I don't want to know." It was the story they both had given, and that was what Dick decided to continue to believe until this was all over with.  
  
"The day after you did that, Bruce and I went through ALL of your stuff. Your room, your locker at school—everything. HE found the binder. I told you to destroy it because I knew there was no way in hell you'd listen to him, but I hoped to God that I had enough influence that I could make you see how DANGEROUS it was." Maybe his brain would rupture and get it over with. This was a headache on par with when he tried to talk sense into Mara. Wally and Roy were right—kids just sucked. They sucked the life right out of you and then blamed YOU for trying to turn them into responsible members of society NOT bent on destroying civilization as it was known.  
  
Unconsciously chewing on his lower lip, Jimmy examined his hands. "He... sort of talked to me about the binder. I was gunna let you burn it, but then he said he knew about the binder and he didn't approve... and I rescued it before it hit the incinerator." His eyes clenched shut as he anticipated another whack to the head.  
  
"Why couldn't you just listen to him? HE said it, therefore you had to disobey?" Was it some kind of holy quest to his son? To go against Batman with every fiber of his being?  
  
"I—I don't know. I just... couldn't. I couldn't listen to him. I still can't listen to him. He said I'm going to do something awful before this is all over and you won't forgive me unless I talk to you now."  
  
"Oh great," Dick sniped. "You're going to do something even MORE horrible? And I'm supposed to believe the coma dream of a sociopath with grief issues." As soon as it came out, he regretted it. He was supposed to be the parent, the mature party in this discussion.  
  
"I'm not a sociopath." Jimmy looked as if he'd been stung. "I'm NOT a sociopath."  
  
"That remains to be seen, kiddo." He could tell that Jimmy was about ready to try to get out of bed again, so Dick just put a hand on his chest and held him there. "You're not going anywhere."  
  
"I want to help."  
  
"You need to be cleared by the Justice League before I'm letting you out of here."  
  
Jimmy folded his arms over his chest. "You don't believe me."  
  
"I believe you," Dick managed to keep his voice even. "I don't TRUST you."  
  
The door opened, and Wally's head popped through with uncharacteristic caution. "Oracle just got Tim's kid on an open channel. She just had a run-in with something that LOOKED like Jordan Rayner but was obviously playing for the other side. Tried to kidnap Mara's baby, but Tim's kid apparently kicked his ass. There aren't any more details, but I think we're out of time."  
  
"Oh God. He got a recharge," Jimmy got on his feet before his dad could do anything about it. "We're in trouble now. For real."  
  
"You and Roy are still on babysitting duty," Nightwing told his best friend. "If he gets out of line, shoot him." Then he looked to his son. "Roy'll do it, too. Talk to Oracle. Fill her and the League in. Find a way to disable it. And while you're at it... find a reason WHY Granny Goodness is doing this." It wasn't her usual game. Something drastic had happened, and he needed to know why.  
  
"Well, then we need to go back to my lab." Jimmy tied the sheet around his waste. "Clothes couldn't hurt either. I... I'll work on the Granny Goodness angle."  
  
Dick shook his head. "No. I need you working on disabling this thing." It wasn't open for negotiation. Sealing his point, he walked out.  
  
"I don't need a babysitter!" Nightwing hadn't been in the room for five minutes before Mara had gotten 'that tone' in her voice. The baby was tucked under a blanket in the kitchen with Sammy, and Mara seemed content to stare at the gaping hole in the wall, like it would have some kind of answers for her.  
  
"OBVIOUSLY you DO," he told her, surveying the damage to the apartment. He didn't know what the hell the problem with the manor was suddenly that she was relocating. An attack on the manor would have been a hell of a lot easier defended, and it would also have been easier to sweep under the carpet. The police had finally left, leaving the matter to the Justice League. Tim was still trying to persuade Sammy that she really WANTED to take the ring off.  
  
"Fine, then leave Sammy here with me. She did just fine before." He didn't know what he was doing there, really. Superman had already dealt with the police and gave the media that stern look that said don't do it, or I'll be REALLY disappointed in that 'using my heat vision to destroy your cameras' kind of way.  
  
"Are you TRYING to give Tim an aneurism?" he hissed. "And there's no 'here' to stay in." The wind was whipping through the apartment and a freezing rain was starting to spray in.  
  
Her eyes creased as she gave him a look that could kill. "Fine. Who're you sticking me with? Cassandra?"  
  
Coming here was wasting time. Mara was unreasonable because she was Mara. At least Bruce wasn't a time waster. "I need Cassandra."  
  
"The world's about to end. You need everybody. Who the hell could you possibly NOT have on call right now?"  
  
Nightwing gave a tight smile. For the first time in ten years, he had checkmate. "Crystal."  
  
"HELL NO."  
  
See, he'd learned a lesson today. During that brief moment that you had the upper hand, there was only one thing left to do—walk away. That is exactly what he did. He headed toward the window, and looked back over his shoulder at Tim. "We haveta go."  
  
Tim looked torn between Sammy and the gaping hole with the wind whistling past.  
  
"Crystal'll watch her. She stays with Mara and the baby till we can figure out what the hell's going on with her and the ring."  
  
Tim looked back down at Sammy. "You can't keep it," he repeated for the thirty second time. "Be good, and we'll talk about it when I get home."  
  
"I wanna come too..."  
  
"Sammy," Nightwing said as he shot off a line. "Not THIS time. You need to be trained first." Before Tim's head could explode, Nightwing jumped. They had a world to save and fighting with a seven year old wasn't the best use of their time.  
  
Jimmy swore then activated a containment field as the nanites avoided the Nth metal and tried to eat his lab table. Held in stasis, they stopped their destruction. Roy shifted uneasily, leaning against a parts locker. "It's no good. I can't think of anything that'll stop it."  
  
Mom's voice was loud and frustrated with exhaustion in his ear. She was three floors above him, and far too busy cleaning up his mess to berate him in person. "You'd better think of something. And you'd better do it fast."  
  
"God... I'm working on it." In desperation, he slid a pair of dark glasses over his eyes and turned his plasma welder on and began throwing sparks around the room, but it had no effect.  
  
Tearing off the glasses, he sent him sailing across the room, into one of his metal equipment lockers. "This isn't WORKING!"  
  
Roy glared at him with a locked jaw.  
  
"I'll fix it," Jimmy responded with resolve. The old man was so full of shit. His family wouldn't help him. They hated him right now. He pushed his stool away from the table, and into the hazardous materials vault.  
  
"Where're you going?" Roy asked as Jimmy pulled the ceiling-to-floor length vault door opened.  
  
"I have an idea." He'd fix it, alright. He'd just have to do it by himself.  
  
Mara stared at the windows of the Gotham Towers suit. They weren't as large as the ones in her now wrecked apartment. They sucked. This whole place sucked. The paintings of fruit and pastoral scenes coupled with the orange and red flowers in the foyer were pissing her off. She hated that she couldn't punch anything right now.  
  
Kristin sat down at the table in the dining area with a plate of cookies and milk. "Sammy's asleep with J.B. in the bedroom. Shouldn't he need to be fed soon?"  
  
Or punching someone. She could definitely handle punching SOMEONE right now. "He doesn't eat."  
  
"That's ridiculous." She sounded so damned self-righteous.  
  
"Not since we got the ring back. "That was one of the reasons those creeps at STAR wanted to run a zillion tests. They were fascinated with the self-sufficient environment the ring had created around the child. She'd feel better after she cut their grant money. And punched something.  
  
She was sure Kristin was behind her at the table making a face. "Don't you think you should have that LOOKED at?"  
  
Mara hoped the cookies made her fat. "Don't you think you should mind your own business?"  
  
"I'm just concerned." Her voice was flat, even, insanely annoying.  
  
Mara's eyes narrowed. She continued to stare across the living room at the reflections in the windows and the rain hitting and running down. "The last time I checked, Jimmy took YOUR kids to their last four checkups." Judgmental bitch.  
  
God, Mara wanted to be out there, doing something. Finding him.  
  
"That's none of your business."  
  
Mara folded her arms over her chest. "It's going to be a long freaking night."  
"Jimmy?" Roy wanted to be optimistic. Really he did. But when Jimmy didn't bitch that Roy should stop harping on him the FIRST time he said the kid's name, Roy knew that he was going to be pissed off in about ten seconds. Walking around the workbench and kicking discarded equipment out of his path, he dug his fingers into the cracked open vault door, and pulled it back.  
  
Yup. He was pissed off.  
  
Roy opened a com channel. Kids sucked so completely much. "Barb, the kid's AWOL."  
  
"WHAT? I thought you were WATCHING him." He could hear her screaming in his ear, and the muffled sounds of her discontent passing though the house.  
  
Pushing equipment out of the way, Roy just couldn't keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "Gee wiz, mom. I didn't know he had a MAKE SHIFT BOOM TUBE in his lab!"  
  
He looked at the dialer and tried to place the coordinates. "Oh he's not evil," Roy mocked. "He's just GOING TO APOKOLYPS."  
  
"Phased into another dimension?' Dick promised himself he wasn't going angry. That would only lead to him getting hystericale------------------------------------. He leaned against the oversized round table in the JLA conference room. This was tiring.  
  
Superman was silent, arms folded over his chest, standing behind Green Lantern's chair. Kyle was staring at the white surface of the table, trying not to have an opinion.  
  
"We think it temporarily phased, and that's why we've been having trouble finding it. But here." Wonder Woman pointed to a shining round spot detected by a satellite. "It looks like it resurfaced here. Just past Mars."  
  
"Oh that'll be easy to get to," he pointed out sarcastically.  
  
"I'm not worried about that," Batman stated curtly. "We need a solution first."  
  
"You're going to be waiting a really long time," Barbara's voice echoed throughout the conference room, the large monitor display clicking over to her Oracle avatar. "Jimmy just skipped town."  
  
Nightwing slammed his fist down on the table. "I must be an IDIOT."  
  
Barbara ignored the outburst. "He had a make-shift boom tube, and he booked it to Apokolyps."  
  
Batman looked at Superman, and some sort of silent conversation is taking place. Finally Batman spoke up. "We may have to accept the possibility that extreme measures may need to be taken."  
  
"We can transport the entire thing to the Phantom Zone, where it can't do any damage," Superman supplied.  
  
"My SON is in there," Kyle reminded them. It had been the first time he'd found his voice since this evening, when they told him that Jordy was still alive.  
  
Batman's voice held no emotion. "We're talking about the fate of an entire world." He paused for a moment. "At least this way he'll have a chance."  
  
It was raining harder. She could actually hear it now through the thick glass.  
  
Mara continued to watch the windows, so many thoughts flying through her head, she didn't know what she was thinking of from moment to moment. There were a few ideas she kept coming back to. Drowning Kristin in two percent milk, setting her brother on fire, and blowing this popsicle stand were really high up on the list.  
  
"You should get some sleep."  
  
It only took two inches of water to drown someone. Mara was certain she could do it in one. "Are you done telling me what to do?"  
  
Kristin took her plate to the kitchenette. "I don't want to be here any more than you do, so give it a rest."  
  
"Oh, that's right, all the respectable superheroes are off saving the world."  
  
Kristin came back into the living room area, her hands on her miniscule hips. "You don't need to have an attitude about it. Just go to sleep."  
  
Mara stared past her, going back to watching the rain. Lightening bounced off the building across the street.  
  
"There isn't anything you can do tonight." Kristin grabbed her arm to try and urge her to her feet.  
  
Mara slapped her hand away. She wanted to break it off, but she settled for that. "It's only midnight." She picked up the red and gold pillow from the side of the sofa, and held it to her as a protective barrier.  
  
Kristin took an offended step backwards. "WHY in the name of the gods are you SUCH a hardass? You're not going anywhere. You might as well just take it easy."  
  
Mara took her eyes off the windows long enough to scowl at Kristin. "Why am I a hardass? Why're you such a bitch."  
  
"Lord and Lady! The Princess of Pain can't go out there and get herself killed, or worse, so she's taking it out on me. THERE is a big surprise! You just NEVER get over yourself, do you? I've tried to have sympathy for you, but you don't even DESERVE it."  
  
Mara resisted the urge to get up and smack her, and only twisted the edges of the sofa pillow. "I didn't ask for your sympathy and I don't WANT your sympathy. You're the LAST person I'd ask for it from." She'd successfully avoided having anything more than a conversation about the weather with Kristin for two years, why couldn't she just have avoided this for one or two more days? "And I'm not going to bed just because you say so."  
  
Out of spite, Kristin froze the sofa. The lush warm colors grew pale as they were surrounded and infused with an aura of cold.  
  
Still stubborn, Mara didn't move. Her eyes went back to the windows. What she was hoping for was unrealistic. Her grandfather would have told her that. The odds were very low. However, in lieu of being able to bring him home herself, waiting for a repeat performance seemed about the only thing she had left to hold on to.  
  
"You can't sit there all night," Kristin informed her.  
  
"Stakeouts in Gotham in February. Try me." Mara clutched the pillow closer to her breasts. They had been hurting her since she realized the baby wasn't going to eat. Physically it was just one more thing to endure. Inside, though, she was disappointed. Crystal could go to hell if she didn't think Mara could tough out a cold couch on top of everything else happening at the moment.  
  
"You were ALWAYS like this. You always have to be a little show-off. Look at me, I'm better-trained than you, I'm meaner than you, can endure more than you, and I can be sadder and more miserable than you, too." Stepping away, Kristin broke her concentration and the sofa began to return to normal temperature. "I TOLD them I didn't want to be here!"  
  
Mara got off the sofa with that. She took the pillow with her and went to stand at the window. She'd avoided having actual conversations with Crystal for something like four years. She could go one more night.  
  
Why wouldn't they give her an update on Jordy's whereabouts? Were things really that bad?  
  
It was cold in space, and the metal sphere that surrounded him held that chill close. He wanted the child. She promised him that he would, after he had finished his great task. He had gone to retrieve the child, but that little thing had stopped him. It was embarrassing to be thwarted by a wood elf. His muscles ached, every last fiber, every bit of him.  
  
Soon he would be done with his work for granny, and he could pay that wretched woman back for taking his child, his only kin. She would pay, the way Apokolyps had paid for it's treachery against his grandmother. Planets had souls, and it's was crushed.  
  
The space was tight, confined. The air was humid, but cold, and the moisture clung to him. It was only for an hour more. He needed time to heal. The evil little wood elf had hurt him; far more than a tiny creature should have.  
  
Darkseid sat upon his stone thrown, looking down upon the groveling creature at his knees. "This is the second time you have penetrated my castle. Explain yourself."  
  
Jimmy got off of his knees, and dared to look the lord of Apokolyps in the eyes. "The way I see it... you want her stopped before she destroys the other half of your planet. And I just cleaned my room. I don't want it vaporized."  
  
"You are presumptuous." Darkseid folded his arms over his armor. "How do you know she does not do my bidding?"  
  
Jimmy looked around the chamber, at the alien guards, the enormous pillars and the rough granite floor. "I know that you do not tolerate failure. I know she was replaced as your general."  
  
Darkseid rose, looking down upon the young man with distain. "Leave. You have nothing to offer me."  
  
Jimmy gulped, and reached into the bag thrown across his shoulders. He knew this was wrong, however, it was unavoidable. If his family wouldn't listen to him, he'd get help from someone he could at least play hardball with. "I only ask one thing in return."  
  
"And you think I will give it?" Darkseid sounded as though he was prepared to be horribly disappointed.  
  
Jimmy handed over the tattered orange binder with the biohazard symbol on the face.

Darkseid took it from him, his harsh stare lessened as he contemplated the possibilities.

He "I know you are a god, and can do almost anything. It's just one thing... and I know I can stop her."  
  
Continued in part 3

_donum fac remissionis  
ante diem rationis. _

grant me the gift of pardon  
before the day of reckoning.


	3. in obscurum

Disclaimers in part one. Thanks Charlene for a quick beta. So sorry to James for being a chickensh-t. Also sorry it's been so long between posts. Stupid real life stupid interfering with my stupid…

Requiem

Chapter 3

_Libera eas de ore leonis, _

_ne absorbeat eas tartarus, _

_ne cadant in obscurum_

Free them from the mouth of the lion;

do not let Tartarus swallow them,

nor let them fall into darkness

From the doorway of the bedroom, Kristin folded her arms across her chest and glared down at Mara, who was sitting on the king sized bed, next to the glowing green ball containing her sleeping child. Mara tried to ignore her sister-in-law, concentrating on the black phone receiver as it rang on and on.

"I don't know what you put in her head--" Crystal shut up when she saw the look she was receiving. It wasn't meant to kill, just mutilate enough to make you sorry you were alive.

The phone finally picked up. "What?" Barbara sniped.

Despite her anger, Mara fidgeted. "Mom… I was wondering if you could…. Um… give me a location on my communicator."

"I'm BUSY," Barbara informed her daughter, as though this were new information.

Looking behind her, Mara saw Kristin making a face. "It's important," she assured.

"I don't know HOW you lost her," Kristin finally announced, looking around the near-empty room, then to the closed window.

"YOU didn't hear her leave either!" Mara yelled, before she could check herself. Just one batarang to the head. That's all she was asking for. Or for God to strike Kristin deaf and mute.

"Do you WANT Tim to kill you?" the receiver boomed, vibrating in Mara's hands.

"Look, keep an eye out for her. She can't be THAT hard to find. She has my communicator. I left it on the bed, and now it's gone. I'm sure she thinks she's going to help or find Jor—or… look, when Dad and Uncle Clark were here, she wanted to just leap out the window and help them. She's seven, she has a lantern ring and she thinks she's invincible. I am not exactly sure I could have stopped her, if I'd have known."

"How the hell could you have not heard her leave?" Her mother's question stung. Mara glared at her former teammate. Somehow, mom knew. "Grow the hell up. Both of you. I'll get someone on it. Keep it quiet. I'd rather have Tim breathing down my neck LATER instead of NOW." And the communicator switched off.

"Former partnership doesn't cover this," Mara muttered to herself, thinking of how Tim was going to kill her, over and over again until she was dead. Granted they all lived through this.

"Well, what're you going to do NOW?"

Mara glared at Kristin. "See, this is why /I/ was in charge of Young Justice. None of you people could think independently, much less outside of the box." She grabbed her laptop and put it on the unmade sheets, right next to her glowing, levitating baby.

Kristin huffed. "Of all the NERVE. Could you possibly be any MORE arrogant?"

"The ONLY reason I joined that team is because Superman and Wonder Woman ASKED me to lead." Mara opened the communications software and began clicking away.

Kristin began raising her voice, but lowered it when she saw the baby stir. "And you think that makes you BETTER than us? Do you think that gives you the right to act like a stuck up bitch?"

Mara spoke through clenched teeth, trying not to wake the baby. "Why? Because I actually know what the hell I'm DOING?"

"And you NEVER let us forget it, did you? It's not like you were ever NICE in any of those training sessions. And it's not like you ever actually hung OUT with any of us. No, you were WAY too high and mighty for that."

Mara's eyes narrowed. "And it's not like any of you invited me."

"That's such a load—we invited you PLENTY of times. Until you got too snotty for even Nina to deal with. And then, yeah, we tried to get you kicked out." Kristin said it so smugly. She was so proud of it.

"You invited me because you wanted my brother to tag along. God. You think I'm stupid or something? I knew where I stood." Mara began dialing a familiar communications channel. "I SO do not have time for you. Conceited little witch." The last was muttered under her breath.

"I am NOT conceited. YOU are the one who always ran around trying to get yourself killed."

Mara refused to look at Kristin. She kept her eyes firmly locked on the laptop. "ONE of us had to fight. YOU were the one who thought every problem could be solved with your tits."

"You little--"

Kristin was interrupted when the channel finally connected. "Do you have anything?" Superman asked anxiously.

"We have a run-away. Sammy's gone and done something stupid, and I have a pretty good guess as to where she's running to."

Kristin marched off to the kitchen, unable to even listen to her sister-in-law's voice. It wasn't possible for there to be a more insufferable person on the planet.

A moment later, Mara came stomping after her. "THANK YOU for getting my mother started."

"YOU did that by yourself." Kristen folded her arms over her chest, but unfolded them when she saw Mara giving her breasts a death-look. "What in the HELL is your problem now?"

Mara turned around and walked to the suit's living room windows. "Nothing. It's fine. Everything's FINE."

"WHAT is your obsession with my chest?" Kristin couldn't believe she was doing it, because in general, she was of a non-confrontational nature, but she followed Mara into the living room. "What have my breasts ever done to you?"

"Get OVER yourself. You think WAY too highly of your tits. You're just thrusting them into every situation. And you've ALWAYS done that. And it doesn't freaking help your ego when every single bad guy stops whatever the hell he's doing to LOOK at them. And the GUYS. Oh My God. You have every freaking person in the entire world's attention, and you have to go sticking my brother's head between your tits."

Kristin needed a moment to pick her jaw up before she could even respond. "Could you BE any more shallow? Do you think I cast some sort of spell to be saddled with these? Better yet—do you think they're easy to lug around? It gets even WORSE after TWINS. But you wouldn't KNOW, president of the Itty Bitty Titty Committee!"

"THAT is why you and Nina never listened to me. Because I don't have anything to flaunt!" Mara realized how irrational it sounded the second it was out of her mouth, and she was unable to take it back.

"No, we never listened to you because you're a stuck up bitch who thinks that any of us who even DRESS like we have a figure are committing a SIN."

"It's not PRACTICAL!"

Kristin looked at the ceiling for answers. "For YOU. The rest of us are INVULNERABLE! God, and you'd think with all that armor, you could pad your bra or something. Oh wait, the great and powerful Batman probably wouldn't LET YOU. The bad guys might think Robin was a GIRL or something."

Mara's face scrunched into something resembling a childish pout. Her lips were locked, but the steam was building. She really needed to punch something before she exploded. And God knew, it took WAY too much energy to explode. All she wanted was a freaking nap. "Go to hell. Just go to hell right now," she said calmly. "Or get out of here. I don't care which. Don't even mention my grandfather to me ever again." With a calculated calmness she walked into the master bedroom and closed the door forcefully without slamming it.

Folding her arms over her chest, she curled up on the bed next to the tiny baby that didn't need her any more, not since they'd gotten the ring back. Staring at the glowing green reflection in the window, she wished that something would happen.

Sammy fidgeted, not quite sure that she was going to get the help she needed. "… And the little blue man said I had to go to Apokolyps to do it, but I don't know how to get there, so my ring said I should ask a 'sponsible adult,' but they're all busy so I figured you could tell me cuz you can fly." She sucked on her lower lip. She hoped she didn't sound dumb.

"Kon said I haveta stay in my room," Peaches answered tentatively. "I'm not upposed to try to save the world." She floated up off of her purple bean bag and used all her ninja skills to shut off the tv with the button instead of the audio controller.

Sammy was seven, and that meant she was older and smarter, but Peaches had been a superhero longer, so she hesitated. Maybe she shouldn't listen to the little blue man. But the little blue man said she hadta do it, that she was the only one who could. If she was the only one who could, did she need Peaches? But the last time she asked the ring to show her where Apokolyps was, it told her to get a grownup. Stubborn ring.

But she had to do it…

"Sometimes you gotta break the rules." Sammy was seven, after all. That meant she was in charge.

"I don't wanna be bad…" Peaches tugged on her ponytail nervously.

"Well, it's not really bad because when the grownups made the rules they didn't know that badness would happen, so we haveta break the rules because the badness happened." Dad said it was OK to yell in the house if something was on fire, or something. This was kind of like that.

Peaches gently opened the refrigerator and took out her paper bag dinner. Kon made OK sandwiches. They were out of a bunch of stuff so he had to make them with love instead of jelly. Love left peanut butter on the roof of her mouth, though. "So what do we gotta do?"

Sammy grinned and clapped her hands. "Ok. So we gotta go to Apokolyps and beat up some guy named Darkseid…"

Jimmy looked out from behind the jagged, split boulder with his digital binoculars, counting the bodies that had gathered on the ridge of the next mountain, about fifty miles away. Above, hanging in the sky like a moon was the device that was going to destroy them. Like the snow caps, it glistened in the afternoon sun, golden and harmless. He hoped Jordy was still OK.

Seeing the bulky device that Superman had brought, Jimmy knew that if something wasn't done very soon, Jordy would be in a very, very bad place. He knew where that type of Kryptonian device was meant to send people, and the Phantom Zone was not something he wished on anyone. He was more worried about that, then failure and the destruction of the world.

He passed the binoculars to his companion. "We just have to get past the entire Justice League. What's the plan, Boss?"

Bruce pulled the binoculars away from his uncreased eyes. "Do not speak to me." The chilled wind tore through his dark hair, stinging his ears pink.

Jimmy looked down at his parka, feeling heat rise to his cheeks despite the cold.

"Do you see any vulnerabilities?" Nightwing began looking over a photo copied skematic that was little more than Jimmy's scribblings on a piece of paper. There were several formulas and words like "destructo ray" and "think Death Star."

"Not at this distance," Wonder Woman reported over a staticy channel. "I'm about 100 kilometers off. I don't see any defense systems, so I may be able to actually land on the surface."

Nightwing watched his frozen breath for a moment, temporarily spacing out.

"Does she have anything?" Batman asked gruffly, jarring him.

"I think I might." Nightwing looked up from his paper to the man he considered an almost-brother. "Look at this. 'think Death Star.' Maybe he's really thinking Death Star. How the hell did they blow THAT thing up in the movie?" He wrapped his knuckles against his forehead. "There was the trench, and the Millennium Falcon…"

"We are NOT blowing that thing up." Kyle's voice wavered with emotion.

"I'm not saying blow it up. I'm asking, what was the Death Star's vulnerability. Jimmy's a movie fanatic. Consciously or unconsciously he may have put something in there. Barb?"

"I'm on it." He could hear her pecking in the background.

"Oh, come on. SOMEONE had to have seen that movie more recently than me?" Dick had owned all of them at one point. But he'd gotten busy, his kids had used his DVD's for target practice…

Sammy and Peaches floated above the rubble in Darkseid's throne room, trying not to cough on the smoke. The fortress lay in ruins, but they still couldn't find that Darkseid guy. They'd kicked the butts of all his guys, and those god peoples were going on a long trip on a construct rocket ship, and the whole place was in smithereens.

This superhero thing was pretty easy when you got to smash stuff and break it. And they were really good at smashing and breaking stuff.

"So where's the guy?" Peaches asked, looking through the walls. X-ray vision was so completely cool and Sammy wished she had it too.

A pair of 3D movie glasses popped out of her ring and she put 'em on. "That's so cool." Some of the walls in this place were lined with bones. "I don't know where the guy is. Maybe he's not here?" Maybe this superhero thing wasn't as easy as it looked. Where could they look for the bad guy, if he wasn't here already?

"Wonder Woman is already on site," Bruce informed as he began laying down charges. "Superman will respond first to the explosion. In normal circumstances, Flash would be first, but the hills and valleys will take microseconds longer for him to negotiate. Green Lantern will not leave his post. I do not expect Tim or Nightwing to move either."

The words were out of Jimmy's mouth before he could stop himself. "So what're we doing about them."

Bruce tossed him a tape-wrapped bundle. "Use your imagination."

"Won't Superman see through--"

"Lead shavings." Bruce didn't even let him finish the thought. "The third blast will give us seventeen minutes to find a vulnerability."

"Why can't we just tell--"

Bruce scowled, never looking up from the wire he was twisting around the contacts of his improvised explosive. "Do the words I say penetrate your skull?"

Jimmy's voice was tiny. "You're the boss, Boss."

"Let me deal with Wonder Woman. She should be gone by the time we get there, but if not, I will handle it," Bruce went on to explain. "In the mean time, if you disobey me…" Bruce looked up from his final adjustments.

"I get it," Jimmy said quietly. There was an uncomfortable silence as he packed up the remainder of their gear. Shoving unused wire into his bag, he looked up. "Tha-thank you." He turned away, burying his head back into his work.

Bruce knocked his oversized snow-covered boots against a rock to clean them once he was finished with his task. "You got the red suit to work."

"I… it was the servos. They just needed a different power source. It—it was a good design I was working from." Jimmy snapped his pack closed and threw it onto his shoulders. As he was swinging around it's enormous weight, a flicker of light caught out of the corner of his eye. "I don't think we have seventeen minutes, Boss."

Bruce depressed a censor in his gloves, and the rockets in the boots ignited, lifting him off of the mountain's surface. He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a rebreather. His new lease on life did not come with any extra amenities. The air was thin but manageable. A few hundred more feet, and he'd have a problem.

Jimmy lifted off the ground a second later, somewhat impeded by the weight on his back. The silver globe hanging in the sky began to glow green, emerald electricity crackling around it. Seventeen minutes was generous at this point.

"First detonation in five seconds," Bruce announced, temporarily removing the rebreather, then shoving it back in his mouth as soon as he was finished. He thumbed the detonator, held for a silent five count, then depressed the button.

There was a pause, and for a moment as he climbed upward in the atmosphere, Jimmy thought that it hadn't worked, that something had gone wrong. Then the orange-gold light and black smoke of the blast caught his eye before the sound reached him. The entire mountain cap blew apart, creating a new fiery plateau several hundred feet below.

They flew upward through the metallic smoke and debris. Through the haze, he caught two separate streaks of red, one lower and smaller than the other. They approached the camp where his father and the rest of the Justice League were attempting to sort out the situation. As soon as he caught sight of his father's midnight and blue costume, the second explosion went off, mid air. Like a fireworks display, there were several secondary explosions as the detonated shards poured downward. The rest of the Justice League headed for it, getting lost in the smoke that seemed to thicken exponentially as they went north.

Bruce pulled a faceless black mask into place and changed directions, going straight for Wonder Woman. Jimmy was startled by this, but kept on his current course. He was certain Bruce could deal with Diana. He needed to focus on saving Jordy, and the world.

…Still. Hadn't he asked for Bruce to be his weapon so that BRUCE could do this?

Diana saw the explosions before the alerts began blaring on her console. Her natural instinct was to pull back, to go towards the explosions to find out what was going on. She knew it was a distraction, however. Jimmy was trying to get to the satellite. Just as she was about to veer and double back, something small, black and trailing fire and spent rocket fuel was blazing towards her.

She immediately identified the black Icarus suit with it's bulking joints, but the headgear was different. Instead of the smooth shiny black helmet, it was a full face mask, similar to what Batgirl used to wear.

He made a sharp right, away from the sphere and past her, and she pulled up and back, leveling the plane as she gave pursuit. He wanted her to follow him. And he knew that she knew this. It was rather Bruce-like in it's over-thought simplicity. He also knew that she'd follow—there were others to put down anything more than explosions that he may have devised.

Robin sat on the ledge, her long, thin legs dangling beneath her, arms folded tightly across her chest. It was summer and warm, and it was getting itchy under the layers of Kevlar and Nomex, but she didn't scratch. HE always gave her a look when she fidgeted and made comments about having hereditary ants in her pants. Even though HE wasn't there to see, and in fact, she was here to get away from HIM. "And then he was all like, bla bla bla, not taking it seriously, and bla bla bla, Superman this, and Wonder Woman that, and he said that they should have asked him first, and if they had the nerve to ask me to take over Young Justice before they asked him if it was ok to ask me, that I should have said no, or asked him or something. I don't know."

Jim crushed the butt of his cigarette on the cement ledge, putting it out. He blew smoke out of his nose for a moment before he spoke. "And now he's letting you run around the city all by yourself."

Robin rolled her eyes and smacked her forehead. "I don't think he even knows I'm not on the moon any more. He was having some kind of spat with Wonder Woman where he says three words, she says two words, and they stare at each other weirdly. And anyways, I'm thirteen. Firstly, that should be old enough to be allowed in the city all by myself, and secondly, even if he doesn't think I can lead a team, I can lead a team, and that's gunna mean being un-adult-supervised sometimes, so he'll haveta deal."

Jim let out a laugh. "I dare you to say that to his face."

"I say all kinds of stuff to his face," she said proudly, picking up her chin. "And anyways, I'm not sure if I'm going to stay. They already don't like me."

"Aren't you being a little paranoid? I think they just need to get to know you."

"I'm not Lian. And they're all older than me, and they all think they should have been bumped up to lead. And Nina's just showing off how she can be mean and stuff because her dad's my god-dad, and she thinks that makes her in charge of me or something. I dunno. I hate people. And that one from Bludhaven, Crystal? I think she hates me the worst. Probably because Nightwing won't let her do anything IN Bludhaven. Like that's somehow my problem that she has like no training. But she dates college guys and can put down small rebellions with her chest alone, so I guess she thinks that qualifies her somehow. For something."

Lighting another cigarette, Jim pointed to a fast-approaching shadow coming in from the east. "You're busted, kid. Don't judge them too harshly, and keep your attitude in check. He's proud of you even if he won't admit it. And the rest of them will come along when they see how nice, kind and helpful of a leader you can be."

Robin tried to sigh. Being nice was SO difficult.

Batman landed beside them. "You. Teleporter. Forbidden."

"Yes, sir." Being nice sucked.

Jim took a few very long drags on his latest cigarette as the silence droned out, then crushed it, half-smoked. "Well, I'll leave you two to it." Shrugging, he turned around and left. "And congratulations, Robin," he added just before he opened the door to the emergency stairs.

"See, Grandpa Jim likes me," she muttered under her breath, breaking rule number three about how to talk in uniform.

"This isn't about like, Robin. YOU are still being trained. That makes ME responsible for YOU."

She shrugged and sighed. Robin had hoped that this would be her opportunity to make friends and stuff. She didn't get along with anyone at school—actually she was just shy of invisible there. Batman liked it that way, and she liked making him happy, but it was kind of lonely too. Lian was too grown up and moved too far away, the Titans and the Justice League saw her as a kid and a sidekick who needed to be kicked out of the room whenever they were talking about "grownup" stuff. She'd have been fine even just being a MEMBER of Young Justice. Leading was just a bonus. "So when am I grownup enough to be responsible for myself? I'm thirteen. Dad was a Titan when he was thirteen. Redwing was riding solo when he was thirteen."

"When you're ready."

Aww, man. It was turning into one of THOSE conversations. "When will I be ready?"

"You're ready when I say you're ready."

"When are you going to say I'm ready?"

"How's about thirty six, or over my dead body?"

Robin hopped off the ledge, using her momentum to push herself away from the building as she went into freefall. She heard Batman's cape flapping behind her own. "You're gunna let me drive before I'm thirty six though, right?"

Mara was groggy when she woke, and for a few minutes she didn't remember where or when she was, or why she was there. She hated the dreams about her grandfather most of all. She hated even more when they managed to somehow be relevant. It was like the tutelage was never really over.

Finally waking up enough to roll over, she rubbed her eyes and yawned. She could probably stand to sleep another eight or twelve hours. It had been a hellish few days, days that hadn't done her body any favors.

However, she needed to get the hell out of here. Kristin might be right. She might be petty and holding a grudge over bra size. However, the last of her frayed nerves were about to snap. She'd already had that happen once, and couldn't afford a repeat. Not when she had someone else to take care of.

She really was in charge now. Not of anyone else—she couldn't even convince people that her way was the right way, much less get them to do it her way. But she was in charge of herself, and she was in charge of this little green being that didn't seem to really need her. And so that gave her the right to pull rank on someone who WASN'T in charge of her, and get the hell out. Or knock her unconscious. That would be OK too.

So much for Dad not making her crazy.

Bruce wondered just how many times he could play this game with Diana before she'd catch on. Ducking one more time under her ship, leading her towards the sphere, then away again, he tried to get a visual on Jimmy but couldn't.

In a way, he almost wished she would. He knew the rules, he knew the risks. He'd been happier where he was; hadn't wanted to leave in fact. That was why he had tried to get Jimmy to solve this on his own. It was why he was bitter that he'd been called back. And by Darkseid no less.

But now that he was here…

Chancing a swipe at the front of Diana's air craft, he got close enough to let off a detonation to obscure her vision without damaging the plane.

Now that he was here he just kept thinking about how boring it had been up there.

How the hell could absolute peace and contentment be boring?

The suit design had increased his strength well past what he'd been able to achieve, even in his prime. The rockets had steering capabilities he hadn't had the time or technology to devise. Damn that kid for being too good for his own good. He could have formed him, he could have given him focus and direction. Perhaps there was still time…

He knew the rules. He knew the rules, and even HE had to follow them.

"Could you be MORE of a self-hating jackass?"

Mara stuffed her laptop into the satchel she'd been dragging around all afternoon. "Probably not." She kept her back to Kristin. She'd been trying to make this departure unnoticeably, but for some reason the bitch had come to check on her, and there was no escaping that.

"You had a baby three days ago. Any normal, sane individual would be IN BED. Where you WERE the last time I checked on you."

There was no 'nice' left in her. Mara shoved her sweater on top of the laptop, fumbling around in her pocket out of habit to make sure her communicator was with her, but came up empty-handed. "Gee wiz, didn't know you cared. Look, I've slept enough. I'm tired of sleeping—I'm not going to do that while my life passes me by. If you're not going to leave and leave me alone, I'm going to go. Just tell my dad I slipped out, or I knocked you unconscious, or whatever. I don't care what you tell him, really."

There was still that evil sort of hysteria in Kristin's voice. "You are not taking that child with you. I don't care what you allow to happen to yourself, but I'll not be responsible for you taking an infant out of here."

Pulling the baby towards her, Mara dared to turn around. Kristin was misting; she meant business. "I'm responsible for him. Not you, nor anyone else. I'm an adult, so unless you want to fight me for custody, I suggest you get out of the way."

"You're not a responsible for ANYTHING."

Mara gave a mean smile. "This is coming from the woman who won't touch her own children."

Kristin instantly rematerialized. "That is NOT fair."

Mara didn't move a muscle. She just waited for Kristin to explain.

The other woman sighed. "There's something wrong. Every time I touch them I… misfire. They… they don't know what's wrong. The kids don't have a meta-gene, but they have some sort of field… Gods. You are one to judge me."

Mara turned to grab the bag behind her. "Then it sounds like you have your own problems to deal with. Quit concerning yourself with mine."

"Why do you always have to try to do everything on your own? The Old Man's house has gone to hell because you won't bring anyone in—do you think you're going to run this city, that company, that house AND raise a child by yourself?"

Mara wanted to point out that Jordy would help, just as soon as he was whole again, but it was too much to vocalize or hope for. "I'm going to have help," she said proudly. "And he already has a nanny subroutine." Of course it was a program designed to raise Zigwellian children, and Matrix didn't know about this plan yet, but it'd happen. He owed her, and she could score him a new shell.

"Gods. Can't you just suck it up and let your family help you? What the hell are we here for?"

"YOU are not my family. You may be my nephew's mother. And for whatever reason, my brother loves you. But he's also an insane megalomaniac, so you might want to take that for what it's worth. And as for my family—well, every bird has to leave the nest sometime. And that means Gotham. I didn't want to admit it, but I have to go. Away from here, away from my family."

As much as this place was in her blood, as much she couldn't stand to go, she knew she had to. It was time to cut the cord with her family, and it was time to really be part of the world. Her grandfather had left for a time when he was younger than her. So had her father. She supposed it was a necessary rite of passage. But she was in charge of herself, and she had to take that step. There may be another life waiting for her somewhere out there, or she may come back. She didn't know. But she knew she wouldn't find out standing here, fighting the urge not to kill her sister-in-law. "I'm leaving. You can try to stop me, but you won't. I know six ways to stop you WITHOUT a ShopVac. I'm not up to snuff enough to be in the field, but TRUST ME, I can get past you. So for the sake of not waking the baby up, I suggest you step aside."

This had been the longest seven minutes of Bruce's life. This one, or the last. It was time to end this. Letting off another charge, he created enough of a screen for himself to get clear from Diana, and Kyle, who'd finally come to see what the heck was going on.

"I need an ETA, NOW," he ordered.

There was a pause and some crackling on the other end. "I… I can't see any way to disable it. There's only the one exhaust port for the steam produced by the fusion. I guess we could keep it busy for like a billion years until the coolant wore out."

"We don't have a billion years, young man. You know what you need to do." He hated to say it. He desperately hated what he was about to cause, but he also knew it was the only way. When he'd been 'up there,' he'd been at peace with the fact of how this would transpire. But the longer he spent here, the more he forgot what that place had been like. He knew he'd grasped peace, happiness, could remember what it had been like, but didn't seem to long to return. It was out of his hands. He knew the rules.

"I… I need other options. The only way I see is the port. To overload—dammit, you were supposed to give me another way out!"

Nor did Bruce want to hear the grief in the boy's voice. He really had let the boy down. Old habits returned, and he couldn't help but blame himself. "Jimmy, I told you that before this was all over you'd do something that you regretted. Something your family won't understand. Something your sister will despise you for."

He regretted that he knew the way it was to play out—especially when he heard the anguish in the young man's voice. "Then what the hell are you here for!"

Bruce landed on a rocky ledge that hung out so far the snow had blown off of it. He'd be discrete here. They wouldn't be looking for him—they thought Jimmy was alone. He'd escape even Clark's notice. "I'm here to tell you it's the only way. I'm here to tell you that it'll be alright, in the end."

A flash in the distance let him know that Darkseid had arrived. His time grew short. "Do not be an island, Jimmy."

"What the hell?"

"I'm sorry for failing you, and I'm sorry I took up so much of your sister's life. But she'll be alright. Eventually the pieces will fall into place." He found a small ledge to sit upon. Looking out across the glistening rocks, Bruce pulled the mask off and prepared to wait.

"Goddamnit! Quit talking in riddles. You know a way to save Jordy. Just tell me. I'll do whatever you want, just TELL ME!"

Bruce sniffed the thin, cold air. He couldn't ever remember stopping to enjoy a view like this. "All of the pieces will fall into place. We are energy made material, and that's all I can tell you. Except… you may want to buffer between Sammy and Tim. She will have a task to perform. If he finds out, he won't let her."

"You and I have business," a deep voice ground out beside him.

Bruce nodded, standing. "Well, get it over with." He'd done all he could for Jimmy anyway. Either way, the outcome would be the same for Jordy. It only depended on how many others were vaporized in between.

Darkseid seemed strangely placid. "No. I want him to see this."

Bruce sat back down. "Fine."

There was only one problem with prolonging this, however. It gave him too much time to think. That also gave him too much time to plan.

To Be Continued


	4. judex est venturus

Disclaimers in part 1. Thanks to Charlene for the beta. You rhok and sorry for all the other times I ship stuff out without giving ya credit.

Sorry so long between parts. I wrote a novel in the middle smile and no, you can't see. Not yet. (Imagine, little Miss Ichy Posting Finger not posting).

Requiem (4/5)

XXXXX

_**Quantus tremor est futurus **_

_**Quando judex est venturus,**_

**_  
_****How great a trembling there shall be****_  
_****When the judge shall come **

Bruce despised himself for sitting here, for watching it unfold. Especially when he knew what was to happen and what was supposed to happen. But the longer he sat there, on that rock, listening to Jimmy alternate between begging and demanding help, the more restless he became. The more his mind twisted and turned.

It hadn't been difficult, after all. Darkseid was about to be in a bind… one that he didn't even know was possible. The plan didn't need time to formulate. It had popped in, fully conceived; it was that simple, really.

What swirled around in his head now were the possibilities. About how wrong it was that it was that easy.

"You are too quiet," Darkseid grunted from beside him. The god continued to stair off at the horizon, watching the lead filing settle and the last of the tertiary explosions go off.

Shutting off his comm, Bruce's mouth twitched. "Contemplating my doom, and all."

XXXXX

If the old man's calculations were correct, he'd have Superman on his ass in about sixty seconds, despite the lead filings and kryptonite particles.

What the hell was Jimmy thinking? Of COURSE they were correct. Jimmy had one minute. And the old man wasn't answering. "Tell me what to do!" the young man screamed again, tears leaking out the corners of his eyes beneath the mask. "God damnit, you were supposed to tell me"

He heard the line go dead. Which couldn't be good, considering he'd just seen Darkseid show up. Suddenly he understood what the old man had meant when he was talking about a limit in his ability to help. The old man had known Darkseid was putting a time limit on the deal.

It was bullshit—Bruce coming back just to tell Jimmy to do what should be done. To tell Jimmy that he KNEW what to do, deep down. Because if that was right, than the only way he could see to do it…

He was standing in front of it. A triangular glorified exhaust port. He also saw something red coming towards him. "Jordy, I don't know if you can hear me." He'd never tested whether sound traveled through Nth metal. "But I'm sorry. I'm SO sorry. I… It won't hurt."

The canned cement solidified extra fast in the cold, thin atmosphere. It gave him five seconds to release another mini-charge. This high up, the particles would spread out and hang on the air, giving him a clean escape. He was sorry about the kryptonite too; Superman had been like an uncle to him.

"Jordy… It won't hurt," he told himself again. "I hope it doesn't hurt."

XXXXX

Sammy paced across the marble tiles, kicking debris out of the way. They'd trashed the whole place (which had been way fun) and they'd kicked a whole lot of people's butts (which was also fun) but they couldn't find the book.

Peaches sat cross-legged on the throne room floor, playing with pieces of rubble. "I'm going to get into so much trouble. I'm not allowed off the planet by myself, and I'm not allowed to fight with gods at ALL, so not by myself either. I think your ring is stupid and broken."

Scowling, Sammy folded her arms over her chest. "It's not broken. The little blue man said we hadta go get the book, otherwise the universe was doomed and stuff. An' the ring said we had to come here to do it. The ring's smart and he knows how to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches."

There was only one thing Peaches was sure of. She was going to be grounded for the rest of her life when Kon found out what she did.

Sammy had made so much sense, that sometimes, it was OK to break rules when the rules were made before the grownups knew there was a big problem. But she was starting to hear Kon's voice in her head, telling her that even if the person telling you to do something bad was a friend, you still shouldn't do it. Peaches liked cartoons, and didn't want Kon to take the TV away, like that one time when she'd punched all those telephone poles over. This hadta be WAY worse than that. They'd just sent a bunch of people through some kind of portal to another planet.

She sniffled, trying to hold back the tears. Kon would blast the TV with his heat vision for sure, and then there'd never be television ever again. "But I LIKE Bunny Bear and Friends!"

XXXXX

It was still raining, hard. It forced Mara to only do five above the speed limit. That and she felt strangely cautious now that she was responsible for another human being. Even one that didn't need her.

"Just… come back home."

She liked the Jag, but she shouldn't have taken the Jag. Apparently it had been her grandfather's 'stubborn' car, and her father had installed a communications system override, so she couldn't shut her mother off. "I don't have a home to come back to."

"Why are you doing this now? Come on. Just come back to Bludhaven, until we have this worked out, at least. I haven't even gotten to see the baby. Then you can go to Toledo or Timbuktu or Tibet. I don't care. But don't run off in a huff."

"This isn't a huff."

"Come on. Look. I don't have TIME to deal with this right now." Her mother sighed.

Mara hit the boarder of Connecticut and realized there was no turning back. She knew she had to do it… but now there was no saying she'd do it another day. "No. You don't. So don't even try. I'm not going to just sit around and wait for the world to blow up, or for Jor-him to come back, or whatever is supposed to happen. Just… find Sammy or something."

She'd seen it on the property list after her grandfather's funeral and hadn't done more than file that information away at the time. But this… this would work out well. It would give her the space and distance, not to mention the resources to get Matrix back into a real body. Who'd have guessed Batman owned a crazy mad scientist laboratory/cottage thing deep in the inner annals of New England?

XXXXXX

Peaches tugged on the little skirt, trying to cover over her chubby legs as she sat in the dust and rubble of the throne room. "I wanna go home now. I'm bored and I gotta watch all the cartoons before Kon grounds me forever and ever."

Sammy looked around, unsure of herself. Maybe the ring was stupid, and they shouldn't be here. "You're not gunna get grounded. Stop cryin' like a six year old." She continued to look around, kind of lost, until an idea popped into her head. "You got x-ray vision. Why don't YOU look for it?"

Getting up, Peaches began squinting and making faces, her cheeks puffing up as she concentrated hard. "All'z I see are the bones in the walls. And there's stuff I can't see through. Like in the throne and stuff."

Sammy rushed over to the enormous metal and stone chair. "Then I guess we start poundin'."

XXXXX

Bruce knew better than to do what he was about to do.

But he also knew himself. There were some compulsions that he kept buried deep within, but when they surfaced… he was unable to stop them. He glanced at his watch. "He'll be back in about three minutes. You should make it spectacular. But not too spectacular. I wouldn't recommend the Omega beam. If you have another method of dispatching me that would probably be best. I think we'd both prefer if Superman didn't put two and two together."

Darkseid glanced at him then went back to staring at the chaos unfolding in the sky. "I preferred you before. When you were brooding. And quiet."

A twinkle of mischief caught in his eye, and Bruce gave a genuine smile. "It pains me as well. However, given time to reflect, and the hindsight and foresight you start to think about things. Like this. I have no real cause for concern. It's going to hurt a great deal, but I'll be back to my business before dinner time. The boy'll get over it. Well, he won't get over it, necessarily. But he'll have other things to worry about. So will you, my friend. Like the two little girls tearing apart what's left of your planet, looking for that book that worth trading my life for. The moment you destroy me will be the exact moment they find it in the throne room. It's irony, is what it is"

Darkseid eyed him suspiciously, but only for a second.

Bruce knew he had the god—humbling Jimmy was far more important than killing him at this exact moment. Losing all of Jimmy's world-destroying devices would certainly go against the cause of humbling the young man who'd caused him so much grief and destroyed half his kingdom.

"Stay where you are," Darkseid ground out, a portal igniting on the rock face.

The moment Darkseid stepped through, Bruce ignited the light charges. He kind of despised himself for even bringing them along, though he prided himself on always being prepared. It meant that, deep down, he knew he was going to do this from the beginning.

In the distance, he saw Jimmy covering the mask of his helmet with his arms against the glare that was meant to approximate the effects of an Omega beam. Bruce loathed himself in part because it was so easy. It was so easy to leave when no one was looking for you.

Which was for the best. There certainly would be hell to pay if Tim knew that Bruce had just pitted the younger man's daughter against a psychotic god.

It was far too easy, therefore there had to be a tradeoff. There had to be an element of evil involved.

XXXXX

Mara tried to flip to another channel. Listening to Booster Gold profess undying love to himself in the mens' room mirror like that one time in college was better than going in circles with her mother. She would have felt bad about leaving her family if she had any more room left within her for any other emotions. The world had spun out of control since Jordy had knocked her out cold, and only some of it was the concussion.

There'd been a few moments when she'd been actually worried about the fate of the universe. But this was like… every other week for them, right? She couldn't dwell on the fact that this was Jimmy who'd set this into motion, and that he was probably more dangerous than ten megalomaniacs combined. It wouldn't do any good to worry. It took much energy to worry.

She finally got it to lock on a JLA channel. Her mother faded into the background as explosions sounded over the speakers. Looking in the rear view mirror, she made sure the glowing baby was still asleep. It was the creepiest damned thing ever… he was awake, and staring at her the blackest pupils she'd ever seen. Like he knew something. Gripping the wheel tighter, she focused back on the road. The rain had stopped, but there was a lot of run-off rushing across the asphalt.

"I'm just saying…" Wonder Woman's voice crackled over obvious interference. "He was flying like Bruce. I've seen all of those patterns before. Why would he lead me away from the globe, then disappear?"

"I want a visual on Icarus," Nightwing informed.

"Confirm he has no accomplices," Batman added.

Superman cut in. "I've been trying, but I can't get one. Lead, Kryptonite… GL and Flash are out—a force field went up about five seconds ago. This is right out of the Bruce playbook."

"Darkseid?" Superman asked. "I thought I just saw…"

Mara opened up a closed channel. "Superman, Flash, Green Lantern—DO NOT alert Batman, do not give oral confirmation. I know where Sammy is, and no one's going to like it. As soon as this is neutralized, we need people on Apokolyps, ASAP. For God Sakes… get SOMEONE up there on that satellite! Captain Marvel, I don't fricking care!" Unconsciously, she speeded up, even as the road continued to wind more up the hill.

Flash coughed once, and she killed the line, going back onto the main channel.

"Get to the globe," Nightwing urged. "If this is a Bruce plan, I know how this ends."

"We're out of time," Wonder Woman yelled. "It's firing up!"

Mara's heart almost stopped. She knew how this story ended as well.

TO BE CONTINUED

_**Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla, **_**_  
_****The day of wrath, that day shall dissolve the mortal world in ashes**


	5. inferni

Thanks so much to Charlene and James for the betas. And for putting up with me  Putting up with me is always appreciated.

Apologies for the multiple Return of the King-esque epilogues. But it's been like 50-billion chapters, so I'm entitled to it.

Disclaimer in part 1

Requiem

Chapter 5

XX

_libera animas omnium fidelium defunctorum de poenis inferni,_

_et de profundo lacu: libera eas de ore leonis, _

_ne absorbeat eas tartarus, ne cadant in obscurum:_

deliver the souls of all who died in faith from the pains of hell

and from the deep pit. Deliver them from the lion's mouth,

lest the jaws of hell swallow them, lest they fall into everlasting darkness.

The heat beneath his helmet was unbearable. The device had fired up, and there wasn't anything Jimmy could do to stop it any more. And from what he could see from the Omega beam flash, there wasn't anything Bruce could do for him either. He hated the old guy more now than ever. The old bastard had come back just to tell Jimmy something he already knew—not to help. Not one damned bit.

Damned old man probably let himself get blown up this time too—just like the last time. He'd told his sister before—it really would have just been so much easier if the Old Man would have chosen himself over Jimmy.

His rockets didn't have much more fuel—he'd be lucky to get on solid ground. In fact, he should be doing that, instead of staring right at the shining piece of white metal, the polarized shield in his helmet the only thing keeping his corneas from searing out. A hundred yards out, he just hovered and waited, stomach twisting and vision obscured with salty, burning tears. The suit wouldn't withstand the energy burst that'd push outward before it dove inward. He really SHOULD head to solid ground.

He should have done a lot of things.

Sure, he could go on hating the Old Man. Bruce was an evil son of a bitch, after all. But he might as well place blame where blame was due.

The white-hot metal sphere dimmed for a moment, just before it ignited into a greenish-white plasma. It didn't make a sound, it just flashed outward, burned, and then turned in on itself. The resulting black hole lasted only a moment, then disappeared, leaving a sprinkle of twinkling coral-colored stardust in its wake.

All the channels were silent; no one even drew a breath until the luminous bits cooled and faded, hanging invisible in the sky.

XX

Mara couldn't believe it was happening again. For a long time, no other thoughts were able to cram themselves into her head; it was so full of disbelief that things could go so wrong again. He had been there—he'd split her head opened and hated her guts for 'taking' his son away from him, but Jordy had been there. Alive. He'd cold cocked her right when she didn't think life could get more unbearable, and that had given her hope that everything would be alright in the end. Nothing was right.

Eventually, her heart stopped racing and pieces of the world began to slip back in. Her knuckles were white from her grip on the steering world, or they would have been, if not for the embracing green light surrounding them. It was thick and physical, but began to pull back and diminish as her breathing slowed. Slowly she was able to take her eyes off the wheel and look through the windshield.

Wow. She'd taught that tree who was boss. It was cracked and split, broken off at the bumper and leaning on the power line overhead. She hoped her mother didn't find out she'd wrapped the car around a telephone pole. It would only make her inevitable detachment all that much more difficult, because of her mother's incessant bitching and inevitable pursuit. Maybe she could push what was left of the car over a cliff. Hiding evidence was good. Maybe she could…

This was really happening again, wasn't it?

Breath catching in her chest, she managed to rip her hand off of the wheel and then turn the rear view mirror. The baby was still looking at her with those creepy back eyes. Looking at her like he knew, and wasn't pleased. He was also taking notes.

The green light died out still further, and it shrunk back to only surrounding the tiny figure in the car seat.

Jordy was gone again when he'd only just gotten back. Jordy was gone, Sammy was going head-to-head with a god, and she'd just wrapped her car around a tree and was alive to tell the tale.

She just wasn't sure why.

XX

They were half way across the Pacific Ocean before Donna caught up with Kyle. She grabbed his arm, and he tensed, but stopped flying eastward. "Kyle, don't."

He looked heavenward at the collecting grey clouds. "Just… I need to be alone."

Donna held his arm, keeping him from flying off further. "Do you really think that?" Slowly she flew around in front of him, and then put her other hand on his thickly bristled cheek. His eyes were bloodshot and his pupils dilated, like he was looking through or past her. "Kyle, I'm not going to let you fade away to nothing."

He turned his head slightly, and pressed her palm to his lips, kissing it briefly. There was not enough energy left in him to feel anything other than emptiness. It left his voice as hollow as his eyes. "I wish you would."

It wasn't just sympathy that tore Donna's heart apart. Empathy nearly killed her—she knew this moment of re-losing someone who'd never quite been back. She didn't wish it upon anyone. "I know you do."

Kyle turned away from her, searching his hands for answers that would never reveal themselves in the cracks of his palms. "I couldn't do ANYTHING. The force field—damn Bruce. Damn him for leaving these things for someone else to find. I could have done something. I could have--"

A finger pressed to his lips. "Shh. You could have gotten yourself killed too."

"I could have at least tried. I could have been there, instead of watching."

Her cheek rested on his shoulder as she brought both arms around him. "Watching is the worst part. I know."

XX

Looking at the leveled throne room, Superman pinched the bridge of his nose. "I think maybe before you girls start at the beginning, you might want to tell me where Darkseid is."

Barda still hadn't scraped her chin off of her chest, and Plastic Man was still kicking around the rubble. In the middle of the throne room, two little girls stood, dirty with white rocky dust and black soot, looking guiltily at the ground.

Peaches rubbed her nose with a fist full of scorched red cape, and then pointed to Sammy. "It's all HER fault. She said we hadta do it cuz the grownups didn't know about the badness, and the Blue Man said we hadta, and we did, and it started out fun, but then it was kinda scary!"

Collecting herself, Barda looked down at them. "Kind of scary? KIND of scary!" They were lucky to be alive. They were lucky to be alive, and she had NO IDEA how a couple of grade school kids had defeated the entire hordes of Apokolyps. She didn't know if it was a stroke of genius or plain old good luck.

Tears started leaking out the corner Peaches' eyes, and she bit both of her lips to keep from sobbing.

"WELL, I hadta do what the Blue Guy said. He knew all about the ring and stuff!" Sammy held up her ring finger. "And the ring said to tell a grownup, but there weren't any growdups, 'sept for the complete an' total NON-GROWUPS that was sittin' me. So I got Peaches, cuz she's 'structable, and we did it ourselves!" Crossing her arms over her chest, Sammy huffed. She didn't understand why everybody was acting like they were in trouble. "And I dunno where Darkseid is. He's mean, he needs ta get sunlight, and I told the ring ta send him where we sent all the other people who tried ta get in our way."

Plastic Man looked at the girl critically, up and down, side to side. He didn't say anything though. He was sure there was supposed to be a smart remark somewhere for this, but he just had no idea what it was.

Superman folded his arms over his chest, letting the little girl know he meant business. "And where is THAT, Samantha?"

Sammy shrugged. "I dunno. I told the ring ta send 'em somewhere where they wasn't gunna hurt anyone. And they got sucked into a big hole. So then we got ridda that guy when he tried to blow us up and stuff, which is rude. You don't blow people up. An' then we blowed up the evil book we were supposed to blow up, then you guys showed up." There had to be ice cream after this. There just had to be.

Grabbing Peaches around her waste with one arm, and Sammy with the other, Superman walked towards the boom tube. "I think you're about to be grounded." And possibly locked in a metal cage, Clark thought. If Tim didn't die of an aneurism first.

Sammy looked up at him innocently. "Can we get ice cream first?"

XX

"…I don't know what part of you thought that ANY of this would be a good idea?"

Nightwing WANTED to stop. He knew he probably should. "You couldn't just listen. You never CAN JUST LISTEN, CAN YOU? There always has to be a reason…" The part of him that was completely independent of the yelling knew it was doing no good, but the part of him that was yelling wouldn't stop. "You're worse than your sister…"

Wally grabbed his arm and wrenched him around, thankfully stopping what was about to become a broken record. "Uhh… dude. Cap'n Marvel didn't save him from being blown up so that you could scream at him to death."

They both looked down at the young man. His mother's green eyes were staring forward vacantly, sweaty thick carrot locks clung to his face, freezing in the cold. Wally scratched his neck. "And I kinda don't think he's listening."

Jimmy licked his cracked lips, never looking away from some invisible point in front of him. "I… He should have just let… I deserve…"

Nightwing drew breath to tell his son exactly what he DID deserve when Wally dragged him away. "Look, man. Just give it a rest for a minute. Wonder Woman wants to take him into custody. She's spazing hard, nobody knows where Kyle went, and Young Justice is still on standby, waiting to find out from somebody even RESEMBLING a leader if they can go home. You gotta take a minute and deal with this."

A guttural sound rumbled deep in Nightwing's throat, but he closed his eyes and collected himself. "You know, maybe I SHOULD let her take him in. He did try to blow up the planet." Tough Love was probably the ONLY thing his kids understood.

Wally looked around, trying to see how many of the remaining heroes had seen the melt down session. "Ok, great, fine, whatever. But he did SAVE the planet, too. And I don't think there's anything we can do to him that he ain't already doing to himself." Wally handed his friend the long, thin and empty can of compressed cement. "I don't think there's a single one of us that could live with making that call. Well, maybe Bruce." Looking over his friend's shoulder, he pointed his chin at the boy, sitting there, staring off into space. "And as hard of an ass as he tries to be, he ain't Bruce."

XX

The closer he got to the base of the mountain, the muddier the trail became. The boots were stiff and weighted unevenly because of the unspent fuel sloshing around the soles. It wasn't a fun trek, but if he took the easy way down, he'd be spotted in an instant.

No. He was dead, and he'd damned well better stay that way.

It was a hell of a lot easier on everyone.

Stopping for a moment, he surveyed his options. He'd left the heaviest of the equipment on the ridge, so he wasn't as well-equipped as he'd have liked to have been. It would have been more exerting to descend straight downward, but it would have been faster, and thereby safer. Lacking safety equipment, however, he continued on his current course. It wouldn't have done at all to be brought back from the dead only to break his neck by falling on a jagged piece of rock.

Besides… they weren't looking for him. No one was. Not even Darkseid, whose mind was no doubt otherwise occupied at the moment. And a good detective knew… people seldom found what they weren't looking for.

He wanted to stick around. Part of him did, anyway. Someone needed to hold Dick back from the inevitable storm. He knew Dick well enough to know he was probably two steps away from an aneurism. That was just how Dick was. Intense to the last drop. It hadn't been easy to watch him all this time. It would be easier now, Bruce told himself. He wouldn't have to see them any more. And Alfred… well. He'd just not think about that. Alfred made his own choices—Free Will and all that.

Small metal shards occasionally sprinkled down on him, but he didn't bother to brush it off. It was best that he wasn't going back. Facing Mara would be too difficult. He'd liked Jordan, really he had. He'd let the boy get within two feet of her, after all. Partners looked out for one another, and he was pleased, in the end, that her only choice was someone who could past the test.

Bruce wanted to take credit for that, but it was probably her parents doing. He'd never thought much of Dick's plan to raise his children in a "normal" environment, but certainly having two dedicated parents paid off. Mara was doing fine, she didn't need him. No one did, really. They might have thought they did, but they didn't. Not even Jimmy, when it came down to it. There wasn't much more that he could tell the boy beyond the obvious.

As for Jordan… well, he was sure he'd be seeing the young man, the second time around.

His boot slid in some muddy clay, and it almost made Bruce stop and look up. They didn't need him to solve their problems, or provide his inept facsimile of comfort. The dead should stay dead, he thought. It might not be true in all cases, but it was certainly true in his.

He'd never really figured out who Bruce Wayne was, the first time around. Now was as good of a time as any, he supposed. He really should have just let Darkseid blast him into space dust. But he'd had a taste of it again, and living was addictive.

XX

EPILOGUE:

Six months later.

There was nothing worse than space junk, Sammy decided. There was the dust, and that was annoying. But when the actual STUFF got in the way, she hated that most of all. Using the ring to push away some crumpled up piece of metal, she sighed. "This is dumb, and it's not fun any more."

"Well, I haveta find it," Peaches squeeled from inside her tiny space suit. "Kon gave it to me, and I haveta, haveta HAVETA find it! Otherwise I'll be in trouble." Because then Kon would know she was playing in space again, when she wasn't supposed to be.

This was the worst adventure ever. They'd been searching everywhere around the earth's orbit for Peaches' gold bracelet. If it got free, then they'd be searching the entire universe. "We need better adventures. The Justice League went to a whole 'nuther dimension and stuff yesterday. We should go to the playground near the ice cream shop and play in the sandbox."

Peaches sighed. "I don't like the sandbox any more. I found dog poop last time." That was the second worst surprise ever. "Tell the ring to find it!"

Sammy hesitated. "I don't wanna."

"Pleaaaaaaase?"

With a whining moan, Sammy did as she was asked. "Mr Ring, will you please help us find Peaches' bracelet?"

The boy that lived inside the ring materialized. "What have we gotten ourselves into this time?" The bald little boy made up of ring energy floated in front of Sammy, arms clasped behind his back.

He had that disapproving look on his face that made Sammy HATE calling him out to play whenever they were doing some thing that daddy wouldn't approve of (like daddy approved of ANYTHING that was actually FUN). "We were playing with the space junk and Peaches lost her bracelet and now we haveta find it. And I want you to help."

The little boy that lived inside the ring looked at both girls critically. "I think you should inform your respective guardians of what you have been up to. I'm hardly a 411 service for lost objects."

Sammy crossed her arms over her chest and pouted. "You're the WORST ring ever. You're supposed to do what I tell you to. Not get us into trouble."

The little boy's lips pulled back in a tight smile. "If you did not do things for which you could get into trouble, we would not constantly be finding ourselves at such an ever-tiresome impasse."

"You suck," Sammy mumbled.

The little boy looked down his nose at her. "What was that? I didn't quite hear?"

Peaches stuck out her lower lip. "Mr. Ring… can you do it for me, please? I didn't mean to lose it."

The little boy hesitated for a moment then sighed. "Very well. The things I do…" he pointed to his left, without even looking over that way. "One hundred and fifty yards to your right, young ladies. And if you do not tell your guardians, you may find that this old ring… lets it slip." The little boy disappeared.

He was great for tea time and the sandbox (when no one else was in the playground) and watching cartoons with, but he was such a busy-body. He even bugged her about brushing her teeth before bed. What was his deal, anyways?

Flying in the direction prescribed by the ring, they saw something shiny floating in the distance. "He rocks," Sammy affirmed. "Even for a meany."

Very gently, Peaches plucked the bracelet out of the ether. "So, we gunna go play at the park?"

Sammy shook her head. "Naw. I think we should go catch fireflies."

XX

They weren't really fireflies, but Sammy didn't know what to call them. They were little green fairy lights that weren't attached to anything. They just floated and zoomed about, making it hard for them to catch.

The ring was good at finding them in the upper atmosphere, hiding in clouds and dancing on wind streams. But the ring wasn't quite so good at actually catching them. It usually meant that Sammy and Peaches would zoom around the sky as quickly as they could, chasing after the little bits of light, then scoop them into washed out mayonnaise jars as quickly as possible. Sammy ate a LOT of mayonnaise now days. Cassie always told daddy it was a phase, but they both knew the jars disappeared from the recycling bin.

It took a while to find them, then even longer to actually catch them, so they could only find a few at a time before they had to go home. They couldn't play too long unsupervised—someone extremely super would find them and get them into trouble just as quickly as the boy inside the ring would.

Today they were lucky. They got to play in a pretty pink sunset, which was very bright and stuff, but made the specks of green stand out among the fiery clouds. They got four total, in two separate jars. The two little ones in each jar danced around each other, swirling closer and closer until they became one bigger ball of light.

"I think we did real good. I'm seeing less and less." Sammy flew straight into the "attic" of the building she lived in with daddy and Cassie and her dumb baby sister. It wasn't really an attic the way houses had attics, but it was a "crawl space," her dad called it. She didn't have to crawl. She and Peaches were the exact right height. They walked across the few boards connecting the huge beams that ran across the building, to their secret hiding spot. She couldn't believe daddy hadn't found it yet.

She knew daddy hadn't found it, because she'd have been in so much trouble by now.

Placing the jars on a small ledge, the fireflies in the other mayonnaise jars got excited, swirling around and bumping against the glass. She wasn't sure how she knew it, but she knew letting all the fireflies play together was a bad idea. They couldn't play together until she had found all the fireflies. She just knew that was true.

"I should go back to Metropolis," Peaches said, staring at the figure covered in cloth lying across one of the boards.

Peaches never liked being up in the crawl space, now that "it" was there. It was cold and grey and always creaped her out. Sammy wasn't sure how she knew--she just knew "it" had to be there, so that the fireflies could play nicely in the end. "It's nuthin' to be scared over. It's just clay and water." To prove her point, Sammy pulled back the thick canvas covering it.

Peaches couldn't jump backwards, she was just learning how to control her powers, and she didn't want to risk putting a hole in something necessary. She just tightened every muscle and clenched her eyes closed. A small yeep escaped her lips before she bit them closed as well. "I just hate looking at it," she said finally.

Sammy looked down at the grey clay man. His eyes were closed and there was no emotion on his face. She supposed if clay were capable of sleeping, the clay man would be sleeping. "It's not going to hurt you."

Turning away, Peaches turned the broken bracelet around in her fingers. "I just hate looking at it, ok? It looks like Jordy."

Sammy replaced the canvas. She didn't know why it looked like Jordy… she just knew it was supposed to.

XX

Mara zipped up her black leather jacket. It was late spring, but they were far enough north that the nights were old enough for it. Even though she was no longer Robin, or anyone of importance for that matter, she still had an image to maintain. Her hair was tied back in a pony tail at the base of her neck—it was the first time in her life her hair was long enough to do that. Dark jeans covered over her boots and thereby her assortment of concealed goodies. Without a cape, the belt just looked dorky—she'd have to hand that one to her dad, at least.

Slipping a handful of smoke pellets into her pocket, she looked around to see if there was anything else that she might need. She wasn't sure how the evening would turn out, and with that in mind, she wanted to be fully prepared. Scratching her cheek, she wondered if she should bother with a mask. She felt naked without it, but it also lacked the subtlety she was looking for.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she poked herself in the stomach. There probably weren't enough sit-ups in the world. She was back into shape, but things looked… different. It wasn't like it mattered—she never saw anyone any more. Uncle Clark had tried to "talk some sense" into her a few months after she left Gotham, but she made it as clear as possible that she needed time.

She needed time away from the city, from the day-to-day of her grandfather's business, her mother's manipulations and her father's good intentions. She needed a vacation from her family, most of all. Tim knew her well enough to just let her go. Batman, on the other hand, had sicced Superman on her. Sometimes Tim could be far more divided than Bruce ever was.

She hated the house. Without Alfred there, they'd just barely managed, but they'd done it together. Without Jordy it was completely and utterly pointless.

Smoothing out the jacket and realizing that was as good as it would get, slapped on a black corduroy baseball cap, pushed it down to her eyebrows in leu of a mask, and left the bedroom of the hotel suit.

"How do I look?" she asked, presenting herself for inspection.

Matrix looked her up and down. He wasn't fond of the new body—he felt that he looked "ridiculous" without a nose, but he was in a fully functioning peach colored titanium and silicone shell, better than ever. He might have been missing a nose, but Mara thought the black and orange body he always wore was far more dehumanizing. "Are those smoke pellets in your pocket, or are you happy to see me?" Yup, the sarcasm circuits were functioning again.

Digging a hand into her pocket, Mara pulled them out and set them on the island in the kitchenette. "Too much?"

"A little eyeliner, maybe. Lipstick would hardly kill you."

Mara made a face. He'd spent the two weeks of his 'out of body' experience trolling around the cave's systems and he must have found Alfred's old files because he was suddenly channeling the old man's more annoying qualities. All of the pestering, none of the cleaning.

Grabbing the fuzzy brown bracelet on Matrix' wrist, she got hold of the furry brown line attached to it, and began tugging. Eventually she got to a harness that looked like a monkey, and the six month old inside. He'd been gently bumping against the ceiling, nibbling on his newly discovered toes. They couldn't keep JB from floating off, so keeping him buckled up seemed to be the only alternative. She'd been reading up on the few meta children that had achieved flight in infancy, and having him float out a window was just as disturbing as a crib with a cage on top. Keeping him tied up like the family dog seemed far saner.

"There's my little monkey." The green aura around him allowed her to penetrate it enough to kiss his forehead. He never took his foot out of his mouth. Well, it was probably for the best that he learned that his mouth could be used for something besides that screeching crazed howler monkey cry that started up whenever he was bored or wet.

He still didn't eat, but she was hoping to introduce him to the wide and wonderful world of food as soon as he had the teeth for it. It bothered her that he was being sustained by a Green Lantern power ring that was thousands of miles away. It intrigued her too… but mostly it bothered her. "You be good for Matrix, do you hear me?"

He cooed and drooled, his gaze seeming to ask who the hell are you, crazy lady, and why aren't you letting me play on the ceiling? It was a look she was getting used to.

Sighing, she let go of the little furry harness. The baby floated back up to the ceiling, still on his little monkey leash. "Well, Jay, some day you'll turn sixteen and will need me for access to the car." That was probably the first time he treated her like she mattered.

Grabbing hold of the door to the suite, she drew in a deep breath to steady herself. It wasn't her first mission since she'd "come back," but this was probably going to be her most difficult. There were some things she'd never been good at.

XX

Discretely, Mara made her way across the crowded bar. Her quarry probably already knew she was there, but there was no reason to draw attention to herself. The lights were dim and a dirty yellow traffic light blinked red on the wall as she passed. The antlers of the moose and deer heads flashed jagged shadows on the floor and the smell of cheap whiskey burned her nose.

Ignoring the looks from the unshaved guys in the trucker caps and the looks from the less unshaved guys in white shirts with rolled sleeves who never left after happy hour, she sat down at the bar and gestured for the same thing that the person to her left was having.

The bartender handed her the drink. Attempting to elicit a response, she took a cigarette out of the breast coat pocket of her jacket and lit up. Smoke pellets wouldn't have been too much.

"That'll kill you," the man to her left said.

"Everything'll kill you eventually." She put the cancer stick back between her lips, but didn't inhale.

"Eventually."

Letting the pause between them give birth to two tinier twin pauses, Mara eventually put the cigarette in the ashtray in front of her and watched it burn down a bit. "You know, Clark's suspicious. He has been since the day… well, you know. You know. You were there."

He pushed the half-full glass away from him slightly. "I'm working here. So."

"So how'd I find you? Someone blew up a shipment of Talia's shit, and it wasn't me. Boy was I sad about that. She's a crazy cow, by the way. Figured you'd still be hanging around the area. Oh yeah, your guy's not coming. I dropped him and tied him up on the roof about half an hour ago. You look good, by the way. Who's your plastic surgeon?" Mara staring down at the drink, pride escaping her lips

Bruce sat forward on the stool. He reached into his jacket then tossed some bills on the bar, gesturing to the bartender that he was paying for both of them. "That wasn't my guy. That was his lookout." A grin broke out on Bruce's face. "We'd probably better get the hell out of here."

XX

The water of the bay glowed a pretty pink from the light of the burning warehouse. "You know, I don't think buildings are supposed to burn that color." Mara handed the binoculars back to Bruce. It had taken them two hours to get control of the situation after Bruce's contact got wise to the setup.

They'd had to drop like fifty guys or something. She didn't know, she'd lost track somewhere around two Ubu brothers and an actual chick that was in Talia's employ—nasty thing with a cape full of daggers, too.

"Do you want to know what Talia was keeping in there?" Bruce scanned the area again, making sure they didn't miss anyone as the fire department pulled up.

She seemed even nuttier than normal, Mara supposed. "Probably not."

When he was sure that no one had gone unnoticed, Bruce put the binoculars away. "How're things?"

Smalltalk with Bruce had ALWAYS been painful. Nothing had changed. "Mom's cyber-stalking me, Jimmy's a complete recluse from what I hear, and my son would rather sleep on the ceiling than in his crib. You know, situation normal; all fucked up. Oh yeah, we rolled out a few new products, stocks're up."

Bruce's arms were folded over his chest as he looked out onto the fine mess they'd made. It wasn't contentment that Mara felt, so much as relief. It was just like old times. The world had fallen apart—she'd lost Jordy twice, and her brother had become a distracted hermit who'd probably starved to death by now if his wife didn't keep after him. Crystal had at least come through in that regard. She couldn't talk to her parents—anyone from her former life for that matter. But this… this was as it should be. Getting blown up and shot at with Bruce.

The wind changed and smoke obscured their vision of the scene. "Talia's moved on, no doubt. It's time I should too."

"Where do you think she--"

Bruce held up a hand, he knew what she was thinking. "If we work together, it will only make it easier for Oracle to track us."

"Mom usually knows where I'm--"

"But she doesn't know where I'm at."

Mara's jaw locked. "And you're still not going to tell anyone."

Hands shoved into pockets, Bruce did the jacket equivalent of pulling his cape around him. "I can't. There's no place for me back there. And before you say it—no, you DON'T need me."

Mara decided to be the reasonable party and put up a fight. It was difficult to swallow back down all the reasons why it wasn't true. "Oh well. It wasn't like I was going to give the company back or anything anyway." She gave him a sidelong glance. "I think you're wrong, by the way."

Bruce wanted to ask if there was anything new with that, but kept his peace. She'd been the most agreeable and disagreeable of his companions at the same exact time.

Not sure if her intention was to make him uncomfortable or herself, Mara pinned his arms at his sides when she wrapped her arms around his torso and squeezed the life out of him. "I hope I'll see you around, at least. Stop in sometime. See JB. I named him after you. And Jordy. He's a little shit. I--" She pulled away suddenly, unsure how to say more.

"Mara, about Jordan—look." How did he say it? Did he say it? "Look. Both of you will be fine. And…yes, I'll stop in sometime." Unsure how to say more, he took a stride up, onto the ledge of the rooftop. "It was good to see you," he said casually. "It's always good to see you." Without another word, he took a step off the ledge.

Smiling, Mara didn't even bother to look down.

THE END

And that, small children, is all.


End file.
